Ann Constable Collection

Anna (Ann) Russell was born in Osceola, Missouri on October 18, 1923. She moved to Kansas City in 1941, where she met her future husband, Lelon (Lee) Constable. They married on January 1, 1942. During World War II, while Lee served in the military, Ann worked for Pratt Whitney as a drill press operator. When the war ended, she went to work with Lee in the family business, Constable Bindery. In 1960, the couple became neighbors of Thomas Hart Benton and his family. This began a close personal friendship that lasted until Benton’s death in 1975. After working in the bindery for twenty-eight years, Ann quit to open her own business, Constable Gallery, Ltd., which dealt in fine arts and collectibles. She had shops in Kansas City, Prairie Village, Kansas, and later in Boca Raton, Florida. Ann handled many works by Benton and was considered the foremost authority on his art. When Ann retired in 1991, she continued to be a preeminent broker of his art. After Thomas's and Rita's deaths, Ann was appointed to the Benton Homestead Commission, which assisted the state in maintaining the Benton home as a state museum. In 1980, Ann co-founded the Benton Foundation, whose purpose it was to place a life-size bronze statue of Benton at the Kansas City Art Institute (KCAI). In 1996, the Missouri Department of Natural Resources asked her to form a not-for-profit foundation to raise money for the Benton house. She founded the Friends of the Benton Home to accomplish this task. Ann and Lee were also original members of the Thomas Hart Benton Associates of KCAI. Ann Constable died on May 24, 2000, at the age of seventy-six.