Meet Boston Curator Austen Barron Bailly

I got Austen to pose in USArt's storage area where she came to see the Thomas Hart Benton Negro and Alligator that is in the collection I curate. It is Benton's only known Florida work. She is borrowing it for an exhibition beginning at the Peabody Essex Museum at the end of 2015. It then goes to the Nelson-Atkins Museum, Kansas City; the Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth; and lastly the Los Angeles County Museum. The exhibition is on Benton's work in Hollywood to include major murals and paintings from other major museums. This painting once belonged to movie producer and director King Vidor, thus the Hollywood connection. What fun we have with art.