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Peabody Essex Museum appoints Austen Barron Bailly as the museum’s first George Putnam Curator of American Art

The Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) announce the appointment of Austen Barron Bailly as the museum’s first George Putnam Curator of American Art

Bailly joins PEM’s curatorial team following her post as the head of the American Art department at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and previous positions held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Wildenstein & Co., Inc. in New York.Selected for her interdisciplinary and adventuresome curatorial approach, Bailly joins PEM at the cusp of the museum’s landmark $650 million campaign and expansion project. In her curatorial capacity at PEM, Bailly will lead the development of a multi-faceted American art program focusing on exhibitions, new interpretation in the galleries, and expanding the museum’s collection which currently includes paintings, decorative arts, photographs, folk art, and textiles representing over 300 years of New England and American art and culture.

A native of New Orleans, Bailly earned her PhD in art history from the University of California, Santa Barbara and her MA from Williams College. She will begin her new position as PEM’s George Putnam Curator of American Art in January, 2013. George and Nancy Putnam are long-time PEM Trustees who have made an indelible contribution to the museum’s future with their endowment of Bailly’s position, and that of a future Curator of Fashion and Textiles, for whom a national search is in progress. – www.pem.org