DALLAS - For Sara and Gerald Murphy, art and life melded easily.
Surrounded by friends such as Pablo Picasso, Cole Porter and Ernest Hemingway, the stylish Murphys raised their three children in the warm sun of the south of France while they infused their own brand of modernism into everything from the way they dressed to their art and the way they decorated their homes.
An exhibit at the Dallas Museum of Art features not only the seven surviving paintings by Gerald Murphy and works that inspired him, but also works from artists such as Picasso that were inspired by time spent with the couple. The exhibit also includes sketches by Sara Murphy.
"Gerald is well known to students of modernism as a forgotten master of modernism," said William Keyse Rudolph, presenting curator of the Dallas exhibit.
"Making It New: The Art and Style of Sara and Gerald Murphy" also tracks the Murphys' lives through photographs, keepsakes and letters, from their well-to-do upbringings to their return to the United States. The exhibit runs through Sept. 14 in Dallas and is the final stop on a three-city tour that included the Williams College Museum of Art in Williamstown, Mass., and the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, Conn.
The Murphys, born into America's Gilded Age, arrived in Paris in 1921 and soon befriended fellow expatriates dubbed the Lost Generation who gathered in the French capital following the First World War. The two inspired F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel "Tender Is the Night," which is dedicated to them.
"I think they kind of embodied this golden moment of the 1920s," said Deborah Rothschild, recently retired senior curator at Williams College Museum of Art who conceived and organized the exhibit.
She said they lived in a more modern, informal manner than the one in which they were raised, incorporating their children into their lives, hosting picnics.
"I think it is interesting is that for people of their situation, they could have been in high society, which they didn't really care for at all," she said. "They wanted to be surrounded by artists."
She said that letters show that during their courtship, one can see the beginnings of the life they wanted to create, a life very different from the restricted and protocol-driven life they had known.
"They really straddled two generations," Rudolph said.
Photos interspersed among works of art show the Murphys' cavorting on the beach and relaxing with friends. In one photo, Sara Murphy glimpses over her shoulder as the photographer captures her famously sunbathing with a long strand of pearls draped around her neck. Another shows Picasso and his son wading into the ocean along with the Murphys' daughter and two sons. Many of the photos displayed were taken by Man Ray.
"In some ways, they were in the right place at the right time. In other ways, they created the right time and place," Rudolph said.
Gerald Murphy only painted from 1922 to 1929, creating 14 works. His works on exhibit include "Razor," a bold representation of a razor, pen and matchbox from 1924 and "Watch" from 1925, which depicts the inner workings of a timepiece.
"It still today looks very fresh and original," Rothschild said.
After living in Paris, the couple decamped to the Cap d'Antibes in the south of France after taking a trip there with Cole Porter. They soon bought a home they dubbed "Villa America," filled with flowers and modernized with sliding doors and a flat roof, Rothschild said.
In 1929, though, the tone of their lives turned more serious after their younger son Patrick got tuberculosis. With the stock market crash that year, the annuity they had been living on from Sara Murphy's family significantly decreased. The couple sold their homes in Paris and New York, rented out the villa and began building a boat for the family's new home, Rothschild said.
As Patrick's health vacillated, tragedy struck when the couple's older son, Baoth, died at the age of 15 in 1935 after contracting measles and meningitis. Two years later, Patrick died at 16.
The exhibit, which displays letters of condolences from Fitzgerald and Hemingway, shows a sketch Patrick made of artist Fernand Leger. Next to it is a sketch Leger made of a bedridden Patrick.
By the mid-1930s, the couple had moved back to the United States and Gerald Murphy had taken over at his father's company, Mark Cross, a maker of luxury goods from leather products to watches. Their only surviving child, daughter Honoria, grew into adulthood, married and had three children. She died in 1998 at age 81.
In 1960, Gerald Murphy's art got recognition in Dallas when it was included in an exhibit called "American Genius in Review No. 1" at the Dallas Museum for Contemporary Arts, which merged with the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts to form the Dallas Museum of Art. The show focused on artists whose work had fallen into obscurity.
Granddaughter, Laura Donnelly, 53, of East Hampton, N.Y., said he was thrilled to be included in that exhibit, quipping: "I've been discovered, what does one wear?"
Grandson John Donnelly, 57, of Palm Beach County, Fla., said he remembers his grandparents were fanatic about growing roses and his grandmother called everyone "ducky." He said they also continued to be on the cutting edge as they got older, with Gerald Murphy introducing his grandchildren to The Beatles before they'd heard of the group and his grandmother liking Jim Morrison's voice.
He also remembers "a certain amount of reserve and sadness" from the two who had lost two children.
As she got older, Laura Donnelly began to realize what an extraordinary life they had led. She remembers as a young girl meeting a friend of her grandmother's named Dorothy Parker, only to realize once she got into college that the woman was a famous writer and wit.
Donnelly said that while her grandmother and grandfather did seem different from most people, to her they were just her loving grandparents.
"They were fun and creative and loved doing stuff with their grandchildren," Donnelly said.
Gerald Murphy died in 1964 at the age of 76. Sara Murphy died at the age of 91 in 1975.
Rothschild said that even though Gerald Murphy only painted for a short time, he continued to perfect the art of living.
"They continued to live as beautiful and fine a life as they could," Rothschild said.
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Dallas Museum of Art: www.dallasmuseumofart.org
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