Panelists

Bradley Sumrall 
Curator of the Collection, Ogden Museum of Southern Art

Bradley Sumrall is Curator of the Collection for the Ogden Museum of Southern Art. A native son of Mississippi, he currently lives in the Historic Faubourg Tremé of New Orleans. He has written extensively on the art and culture of the American South, and has served as curator for over sixty museum exhibitions, including The Whole Drum Will Sound: Women in Southern Abstraction, Michael Meads: Bent not Broken, One World Two Artists: John Alexander and Walter Anderson, The Created World of Enrique Alferez and From Terra to Verde: The Art of Sharon Kopriva. His exhibitions have been reviewed in Art in America, Art Forum, Hyperallergic and Terremoto Magazine, among other online and print publications. His books include One World, Two Artists: John Alexander and Walter Anderson, From Terra to Verde: The Art of Sharon Kopriva, Michel Varisco: Shifting, and Clementine Hunter: A Sketchbook. He has served as juror for numerous exhibitions and competitions, including the inaugural position as juror for the Taubman Museum’s triennial, Homeward Bound.  

Richard Gruber, Ph.D. 
Director Emeritus of the Ogden Museum of Southern Art and Author of “Dusti Bongé, Art and Life: Biloxi, New York & New Orleans”

J. Richard Gruber, Ph.D., active as an independent scholar, art historian and writer. He was Director at the Ogden Museum and a member of the University of New Orleans faculty from 1999 – 2010. He also served as Director of the Wichita Art Museum; Director of the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art; Deputy Director of the Morris Museum of Art and Director of its Center for the Study of Southern Painting; and Co-Director of the Peter Joseph Gallery in New York.

Gruber holds an M.A. in art history from the University of Colorado at Boulder and a Ph.D. in art history from the University of Kansas at Lawrence. He taught art history and museum studies classes at the University of New Orleans, August State University and the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs.

Gruber has published books and catalogues on artists, architects and photographers including Benny Andrews, William Christenberry, Robert Rauschenberg, Nellie Mae Rowe, Richard Jolley, Thomas Hart Benton, William Dunlap, Wolf Kahn, Robert Stackhouse, George Andrews, Elliott Daingerfield, Arthur Q. Davis, George Wardlaw, William Hollingsworth, William Woodward, Richard Sexton and Will Henry Stevens.

Paul Bongé
Grandson of Artist Dusti Bongé

Paul Bongé is the the grandson of artist Dusti Bongé. Since 2010 he has been the curator of the Paul Bongé Collection and the Estate and Archive of Lyle Bongé, which comprises some 35 thousand of his Mardi Gras negatives and a vast collection of vintage Bongé prints. Most recently he has worked hand in hand with Richard Gruber, Ph.D. on the book about Dusti Bongé, digitally archiving, photographing and documenting her extraordinary life and work.

Amanda Winstead
Fine Art Appraiser and Private Art Dealer

Amanda Winstead is a Fine Art Appraiser and a Private Art Dealer specializing in the Art of the American South. She is the exclusive agent for the Dusti Bongé Art Foundation (DBAF) and the Estate of Dusti Bongé. In 2010, she appraised and inventoried the entire collection of the artist’s work for the DBAF. She has taken immense pleasure in promoting the artistic legacy of Dusti Bongé for the last five years. Amanda works with select clientele throughout the Gulf South and has assembled some of the finest collections of Louisiana paintings on their behalf.  She has appraised many notable museum and institutional collections and is the Senior Appraiser of Fine Art at Neal Auction Company.

Amanda has a B.A. in Art History from Newcomb College at Tulane University and a M.B.A. from The Freeman School of Business at Tulane University. She is a Certified Member of the Appraisers Association of America and presently serves as the Board Chair of the Arts Council New Orleans.