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BECK, DUNBAR. (1903 - 1986). Important Collection of Designs and gilted wood study for the White House Steinway, including assorted studies on paper and wood as well as photographs and other ephemera related to the grand piano decorated by Dunbar Beck, presented by Steinway to Franklin Roosevelt in 1938, and which remains in the East Room of the White House to this day. Included here are two copies of a finely printed trifold Steinway brochure ("The Nation's Second Steinway") with a brief history of the instrument: "On December 10, 1938, Theodore E. Steinway, President of Steinway and Sons, and grandson of Henry Engelhard Steinway, the founder, stood in the White House before the President, and said: 'Some five and thirty years ago we had the distinguished honor of presenting the instrument which has found its home here since that time. Now, because of your graciousness and generosity, Sir, this great distinction comes to us again. The motives that impelled this presentation are the same that impelled the first one, namely, it is a paean of thanksgiving by a family who arrived on these friendly shores from abroad and here were permitted to seek and make their homes and their lives, and to pursue their work with happiness and contentment.' President Roosevelt accepted the instrument for the nation, saying he dedicated the New Steinway to 'the advancement of music in every city, town and hamlet in the country.' Visitors will see the instrument in the East Room of the White House. The case, of finest Honduras mahogany, was designed by Eric Gugler. "Dunbar Beck executed the symbolic decorations, which represent elementary American music - the Virginia reel, the New England barn dance, the ceremonial chant of the American Indian, the Negro cotton-picker bursting forth into song and the cowboy singing beneath the prairie stars." Complete details available from @schubertiade_music #schubertiademusicandarts #whitehouse #whitehousepiano #steinway #grandpiano #pianist #americanhistory #piano #decoratedpiano #americanmusic #imwithher.
Address: 305, Walnut Street, Newtonville, Newton, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, 02460, United States
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