Kate Upton, Whitney Crane, Julia Morales and More Lovely Ladies Make Bayou Bend’s $1 Million Houston Day Even Brighter
This Spring Fling Recognizes the Power of Art Loving Women
BY Shelby Hodge // 04.26.24
Whitney Crane and Kate Upton come together at the Bayou Bend fashion show and luncheon. (Photo by Wilson Parish)
The renowned azaleas might have passed their season, but there were three days of floral flush at Bayou Bend as ladies and gents provided bountiful flower power and pastel color pops in the fashions worn during the annual spring flings on the grounds of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston’s beloved house museum. The Bayou Bend partying enriched MFAH coffers by a cool $1 million.
Day one featured a luncheon celebration that filled an open-sided tent with more than 200 MFAH supporters, most of whom were surprised to learn that the museum had opened 100 years ago on that very day.
In his remarks in reference to the mostly female gathering, MFAH director Gary Tinterow noted: “It was the ladies who led the way” in forming the museum as it was the Houston Art League that founded the museum with the doors opening on April 12, 1924.
From that modest beginning with a mere 50 works of art, Tinterow added, MFAH has grown to seven buildings, two house museums, 70,000 works of art and 600 employees today.
The luncheon, featuring a fashion presentation from Neiman Marcus sponsored by The Galleria/Simon, was chaired by Meredith Flores Barker and Janet Gurwitch. This duo guaranteed that the turnout would be representative of several generations of museum patrons.
Among the cross-generational turnout were Anne Duncan, Jeanie Kilroy Wilson, Rose Cullen, Anne Chao, Courtney Freels, Linda McReynolds, Kirby Lodholz, Kate Upton, Julia Eads Glazer, Sloan Childers-Cummins, Julia Morales, Maddison McConn, Lily Schnitzer and Annie Duncan.
Easter Tabletop
Day two saw the Bayou Bend grounds filled with youngsters for the annual Children’s Party with Texas Children’s Hospital as presenting sponsor. Ashley Sneed Dillard and Louise Turner Carter chaired the afternoon that provided various youthful entertainments for 320 family attendees.
The grand finale of the weekend each year is the twilight-timed, cocktail-attire Bayou Bend Garden Party, one of the loveliest soirées of the Houston social season, chaired this year by Susie and Mel Glasscock and Shelli and Steven Lindley. Lugano Diamonds, principal underwriter, provided diamond pieces for the ladies.
City Kitchen, which catered the luncheon, was back to provide dinner for 250 attendees. Also, as with the luncheon, The Events Company provided crystal chandeliers overhead and springtime florals for dinner tables.
Stalwarts of this annual Garden Party included Lynne and Joe Hudson, Anne Duncan, Leslie and Brad Bucher, Kathy and Marty Goossen, Nancy and Butch Abendshein, Sharyn and Jim Weaver, Polly and Murry Bowden, Nancy and Rich Kinder, Lisa and Downing Mears, Whitney and Jim Crane, Lilly and Thurmon Andress, and Lisa and Ralph Eads.
Special guest at the luncheon and dinner was Daniel Ackermann, who follows Bonnie Campbell as the new head of the Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens, built in 1928 for Miss Ima Hogg.
