Gatsby at 100
On view in the Art Museum July 24 through October 19, 2025
Zelda Fitzgerald’s fan, c. 1920s, ostrich feathers and tortoise shell. Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library and Museum, Austin, Texas
In 1922, F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940), his wife Zelda (1900–1948), and their infant daughter Scottie (1921–1986), moved into a Mediterranean-style house at 6 Gateway Drive in Great Neck. Fitzgerald immersed himself in the local community and created an indelible island of imagination, something that resembled but also caricatured what the North Shore of Long Island actually was in the 1920s. On April 10, 1925, The Great Gatsby was published by Charles Scribner’s Sons. The novel received mixed reviews and was not an immediate commercial success. However, it has since taken on a much larger significance in literary and popular culture, achieving a place in the canon of great American novels. This exhibition will focus on the history of the book’s creation and reception, as well as both the mythology and the reality of the area that it depicted. Objects will include items from private and public collections related to the book and to the Fitzgeralds’ lives, period clothing from the LIM’s collection, Jazz Age artwork, and well-developed vignettes.
