JACKIEWRITES INWEEKS PRIORTO JFK ASSASSINATION
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KENNEDY, JACQUELINE. Two letters to photographer Mark Shaw (“Dear
Mark”), each Signed, “Jackie,” as First Lady, concerning his photos: Autograph Letter *
Typed Letter. The first, praising his photographs. With a postscript additionally Signed,
“Jackie,” requesting additional prints. 2 pages, 8vo,White House stationery, written on two
separate sheets; faint scattered soiling, folds. The second, comparing his photographs to
works by Caravaggio and Matisse. 1 page, 4to, White House stationery; faint staining at
right edges, horizontal folds. Each matted and separately framed.
Washington, nd; 8 November 1963
[4,000/6,000]
ALS: “Your pictures were lovely & the color ones UNBELIEVABLE—what is your secret? Besides
your eye, film, paper? Anyway JFK loves the one best of John on my lap looking up at me & has got-
ten it especially framed for his office, which I consider the highest compliment! to John & me & most of
all to you.”
The postscript: “JFK has taken my favorite—the one where John is on my lap turning around &
looking up at me—do you think I could have 1 more of each & 3 of that—Save these in case we ever
need a desperate color photo.
“
You really are a genius!”
TLS: “. . . [T]he enormous color prints you sent us of the pictures you took of John and me last
Easter are so beautiful, they really should be in the National Gallery! I have them propped up in our
Sitting Room now, and everyone who comes in says the one of me and John looks like a
Caravaggio—and, the one of John, reflected in the table, like some wonderful, strange, poetic Matisse. . . .”
WITH
—
Mark Shaw.
The John F. Kennedys: A Family Album
. 4to, publisher’s cloth, discolored at
edges; dust jacket, chipped at edges. [NewYork], (1964).