Courtesy of Judy Gershwin. My Body, a self-portrait by Ira Gershwin, 1932. Courtesy of the Ira and Leonore Gerswhin Trusts. A telegram of condolences sent by the Marx Brothers to Ira Gershwin upon the death of George Gershwin, 1937. Courstesy of Music Division, Library of Congress.
Admission is free.
George the composer and pianist, with his musical ability, charismatic personality, energy and ambitious drive, became internationally famous while still in his early twenties and died tragically at the age of thirty-eight. Ira the lyricist, with his studious, serious but calm manner, initially rambled from job to job. Once he achieved success as a lyric writer, he preferred to remain in the background, enjoying his fame quietly until his death at eighty-six. Individually, or in combination with others, they produced music and lyrics for more than fifty musicals, eleven films, works for solo piano, piano and orchestra and symphonic works. Together, however, often working side by side on seventeen musicals, four films, and one full-length opera, was where their combined talents created some of the most beautiful songs of the twentieth century.