Juli Grainger Senior Curator of paintings, drawings and sculpture at Colonial Williamsburg

Laura Pass Barry is the Juli Grainger Senior Curator of paintings, drawings and sculpture at Colonial Williamsburg where she oversees the research, documentation, interpretation, and exhibition of fine, folk, and decorative arts paintings and sculpture at the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum, DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum, historic area exhibit buildings, and the Rockefeller’s Bassett Hall.

She holds degrees in Art History and American Studies from the College of Wooster and the College of William and Mary. In her role at Colonial Williamsburg, she has organized numerous exhibitions, most recently including: “I Made This. . .”: Works of Black Artists and Artisans; The Art of Edward Hicks; Artists on the Move: Portraits for a New Nation; We the People: American Folk Portraits; and America’s Folk Art. She is a contributing author to a variety of publications, most notably: The Material World of Eyre Hall: Four Centuries of Chesapeake History; Revolution & Evolution: Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum; The Kingdoms of Edward Hicks; and Flying Free: Twentieth-Century Self-Taught Art from the Collection of Ellin and Baron Gordon.

She is a current board member for the Decorative Arts Trust, American Folk Art Society, and Americana Insights and past advisory board member of The Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts. Her current projects include research on the Tucker family of Bermuda and a book highlighting the American folk art collections at Colonial Williamsburg.