The Art Deco Palace Theater, a onetime movie theater in downtown Marfa, Texas: History and Collection Facts

Collection details

• Catalogue date: 2014-02-17.
• Original format: Photo, print, drawing
• Medium: 1 photograph : digital, tiff file, color.
• Language: English
• Location as catalogued: United States--Texas--Marfa; Texas--Marfa; Texas; Marfa; United States
• Collection: Highsmith, Carol M., 1946- Carol M. Highsmith Archive.
• Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print
• Call number: LC-DIG-highsm- 27002 (ONLINE) [P&P]
• Catalogue subjects: Movie theaters; United States--Texas--Marfa; Movie Giant; Elizabeth Taylor; James Dean; America
• Named contributors: Highsmith, Carol M., 1946- — photographer; Highsmith, Carol M., 1946- photographer.

Catalogue notes

• Forms part of: Lyda Hill Texas Collection of Photographs in Carol M. Highsmith's America Project in the Carol M. Highsmith Archive.
• Title, date, and keywords based on information provided by the photographer.
• Gift; The Lyda Hill Foundation; 2014; (DLC/PP-2014:054).
• It was the Marfa Opera House before its cinematic incarnation, but closed in the 1970s. As of this photograph in 2014, a local illustrator used the building as his studio. The Palace's claim to fame was the nightly screenings in 1955 of Elizabeth Taylor and James Dean pictures while George Stevens and his Warner Brothers crew (including movie stars) were shooting "Giant" outside of town. The daily footage was screened across the street at the Texas Theater.
• Credit line: The Lyda Hill Texas Collection of Photographs in Carol M. Highsmith's America Project, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

Sources and reuse

This guide reorganizes bibliographic facts and catalogue descriptions from the Library of Congress Free to Use and Reuse data package, a published snapshot documented in 2024. The original item record identifies the source material. Item-level image rights statement: No known restrictions on publication. Audio, films, scores and full-text works are linked through the original record rather than reproduced here.