Born in
Shreveport to Henry Sr. and Martha Jane Van Loan, Bacot earned a
bachelor of arts in
history from
Baylor University in 1963 and a
master of arts in
museology and
American folk art from
State University of New York at Oneonta in 1972. In 1967, Bacot began working as a curator at the
LSU Museum of Art and an instructor of art history at
Louisiana State University. In 1983, he was promoted to professor of art history and executive director of the museum. Bacot retired from the university in 2008. Throughout his career, he focused on
Southern art, specifically that of
Louisiana. Bacot studied artists such as
Caroline Durieux,
Pietro Gualdi, and
Marie Adrien Persac, as well as 18th- and 19th-century
furniture and
decorative arts from the area. His 2000 book on Persac won the Ruth Emery Award for best regional book that year. Bacot died in 2020. Two years later, the LSU Museum of Art began an annual lecture in his name, the H. Parrott Bacot Distinguished Visiting Scholar Series, which focuses on the decorative arts. ==Works==