Lovita Ann Choat Irby: Artist, Film Consultant, and Community Advocate (1947–2021)

Lovita Ann Choat Irby, artist, business owner, and film consultant, was born on February 28, 1947, in Dallas, Texas, to Troy Alvin Choat and Ruby Lucendy (Griffin) Choat. She grew up with her sister, Billie June, in Oak Cliff, where her parents owned and operated Choat's Art and Frames before the business moved to Duncanville. In 1963 Choat and her family witnessed the motorcade of President John F. Kennedy going north on the corner of Elm and Houston streets, just moments before the assassination of the president (see KENNEDY ASSASSINATION)—an event that played a part in her role as a film consultant decades later.

As a high school student, she worked at the Tower Theater as an usherette, where she first cultivated a lifelong obsession with theaters and their movies. She graduated from Sunset High School in 1965. Lovita Ann Choat married Kenneth Wayne Irby on June 24, 1966. They had met while working at the theaters on the same block of Elm Street in downtown Dallas—Choat at the Tower and Irby at the Majestic Theatre. Interstate Amusement Company owned both theaters. Because Kenneth Irby’s mother and grandmother had died before their marriage, the newly-married couple made a home for two of Irby’s brothers.

The Irbys welcomed two sons, Brian Keith (born in 1968) and Todd Jamison (born in 1973). Both passed away when they were young; Brian died of hepatitis C in 1989, and Todd died in an automobile accident in 2003. Following Todd’s death, the Irbys continued an adoption that Todd had initiated of two related children.

Lovita Irby was a self-taught artist, an interest that began during her childhood when she was four. Her art was inspired by childhood memories of her grandparents’ farm near Tishomingo, Oklahoma. She worked in her parents’ art store and frame shop before the Irbys opened Bluebonnet Art Gallery and Framing in Desoto, Texas, in 1989. Lovita Irby’s paintings personified her Christian faith and often included family members, peaceful pastoral scenes, church houses, longhorns, and her beloved bluebonnets. One of her best-known artworks was God’s Promise, but other popular paintings include Amazing Grace, Blessed Assurance, Headin’ Home, New Beginnings, Old Time Religion, Peace in Valley, Pickin Flowers for Momma, Pulling Flowers for Momma, Serenity, Spirit of Texas, Her Memories of Texas, The Way Home, and Thoughts of Home. Her works would hang in personal collections, government buildings, and embassies. Lovita Irby was a featured guest artist of the State Fair of Texas for twenty-seven years, starting in 1978, and served on various committees and judging panels for the State Fair after she stopped exhibiting there. She became lifelong friends with her fellow State Fair exhibitors, which included Texas artists Arthello Beck, Larry Dyke, G. Harvey, Buck Taylor, and Dalhart Windburg.

In 1991 Irby worked as a consultant with retired Dallas police detective James “Jim” R. Leavelle on the making of Oliver Stone’s JFK. During this time, she worked with the film director and many key participants and photographed the production. She was a well-respected authority on the Kennedy assassination and kept in touch with Marie Frances Tippit, the widow of Dallas police officer J. D. Tippit; Marina Nikolayevna Oswald, the wife of Lee Harvey Oswald; and Leavelle. Irby served on the board, consulted, and gave tours of the Sixth Floor Museum in the former Texas School Book Depository building within the Dealey Plaza National Historic Landmark District.

Lovita Irby was also a cinema historian and collector of Interstate Theaters memorabilia, including history of the Majestic Theatre in Dallas and Majestic Theatre in San Antonio. Her working knowledge of the Majestic Theatre, Karl Hoblitzelle, and his Interstate Amusement Company secured her a place on the Centennial Celebration Committee for the company. She was filmed for a commemorative documentary for the event. Irby’s collection includes many photos of the Majestic Theatre and its various events and is part of the Spotlight on North Texas preservation project of the University of North Texas and digitized at the Portal to Texas History.

Irby was community-minded and shared her passion for art and historical artifacts through her public speaking to school groups and social and fraternal organizations, offering art lessons, and church outreach. Lovita Choat Irby died of complications from COVID-19 in Waxahachie, Texas, on January 29, 2021, and was buried in Restland Memorial Park in Dallas. At the time of her death, she had been recently nominated for the Daughters of the American Revolution’s Women in the Arts Award.