Director of the Wadsworth Atheneum, early exponent of modern art in America. Austin was born to wealthy Boston parents, his father was a research, Arthur Everett Austin, Sr.(1861-1938) and his mother, Laura Ann Etnier (Austin) (1864-1944), who was herself independently wealthy. Raised essentially by his mother, Austin attended local grammar schools and visited Europe as a child. Never a good student, he entered Harvard but was asked to leave because of poor grades.

Medievalist and modernist; Director of Frankfurt art museums and later a Museum of Fine Art, Boston acquisitions curator, 1939-1957. Swarzenski's father was Adolf Hanns Swarzenski, a prosperous Dresden merchant originally of Jewish origin, and his mother, Auguste Beck (Swarzenski). In 1896 graduated with a degree in law from Heidelberg. He married Ella Perec-Wilcynska, [name sometimes appearing as Pertz-Wilcynska] in 1899, turning his attention to art history.