Yes, that’s right — and they’re air-conditioned, too, so all the better. The DMA and the Nasher, which normally charge adult admission prices of $10, are opening their doors from 6-10 p.m. tonight and all day Saturday and Sunday to anyone who wants to visit, free of charge. It’s part of the Dallas City Arts Celebration, which lasts all weekend long and includes outdoor concerts, dance performances and culinary showcases in the Dallas Arts District (not air-conditioned, but still lots of fun).

On top of free admission, the DMA is offering half-price tickets to its newest exhibition, "Making It New: The Art and Style of Sara and Gerald Murphy". Since only seven Gerald Murphy paintings are known to exist (each, including the one above, is part of the exhibit, two in the DMA’s permanent collection), the exhibit is mostly a history of the Murphys’ lives, which I found fascinating. Display cases are full of memorabilia from their interactions with well-known artists and thinkers from the 1920s and ’30s, such as Gerald Murphy’s Yale University classmate Cole Porter, with whom he collaborated on a breakout American jazz ballet, and F. Scott Fitzgerald, whose family was part of the Murphys’ social circle during their time as expatriates living on the French Riviera.   

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My favorite part of the exhibit, however, had to be the newspaper clippings with witty captions sent from caustic American poet, Dorothy Parker.