Smithsonian curator of 19th & 20th century African American Art; Romare Bearden scholar. Carroll Greene was born in 1931 in Washington D.C., and studied at Columbia University and New York University, earning degrees in History and English. Greene’s combining of his passions for African American history and art began in the 1960s while teaching English at NYU and co-curating collections on campus as a hobby.

Curator of Painting, Museum of Modern Art, 1988-2001, and Professor of the History of Art, Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N. J. Varnedoe was the youngest of four children of wealthy Savannah stockbroker Samuel Lamartine Varnedoe and Lilla Train (Varnedoe). His grandfather, Gordon Saussy, had been mayor of Savannah during the depression. Varnedoe used his wealth to attend St. Andrews in Middletown, Delaware, and Williams College where in 1967, he received his A.B. His M.A. and Ph. D. were from Stanford University in 1970 and 1972.