Arthur Everett Austin Jr.

He interrupted his undergraduate career to work in Egypt and the Sudan (1922-1923) with the Harvard University/Boston Museum of Fine Arts archaeological expedition under George A. Reisner, then the leading American Egyptologist.

The Picasso show formed part of the opening of a new wing, the Avery Memorial, largely designed by Austin himself (with Morris & O'Connor of New York City) and which boasted the first International style museum interior in the United States.

In 1928 Austin founded The Friends and Enemies of Modern Music, a society that sponsored premieres or early performances of works by composers such as Igor Stravinsky, Charles Ives, Erik Satie, and Virgil Thomson, as well as Vivaldi, Scarlatti, and Couperin (played on period instruments).

The most far-reaching of Austin's theatrical ventures was the Wadsworth Atheneum's sponsorship, at Lincoln Kirstein's request, of choreographer George Balanchine's immigration to the United States in 1933, originally to found the School of American Ballet in Hartford.

[6] Austin became obsessed by sleight of hand and magic, and having billed himself as "Professor Marvel" as a boy, he returned as "The Great Osram — Masked Master of Multiple Mysteries" in mature life, giving regular entertainments in public and even taking his act on road shows.