Arthur Pope

Arthur Upham Pope (1881-1969), was an American archaeologist and historian of Persian art.

Born in Phoenix, Rhode Island, Pope taught at Amherst College and the University of California. He married fellow Persian art historian, Phyllis Ackerman, in 1920. In 1923, Pope was appointed director of the California Palace of the Legion of Honor. Two years later, he went to Iran to complete research and serve as an art advisor to the Iranian government. He traveled around the world giving lectures and curating exhibitions of Persian art. Between 1925-1927, Pope and Ackerman would serve as chief interior designers of the Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite National Park. In 1930, he edited the Survey of Persian Art. In 1934 he hired the budding Islamicist Richard Ettinghausen. The International Association of Iranian Art elected him president in 1960.

Arthur Upham Pope and his wife Phyllis Ackerman were pioneers in the study of the arts of Asia, with a paramount dedication to Persian art, history, heritage and culture, and its interrelations. Their efforts led to the establishment in 1925 of the American Institute for Persian Art and Archaeology, which later became the Asia Institute, in New York City and their unique programs of research, publications, exhibitions and educational instruction continued at the Institute and around the world until their retirement. Pope is often credited with being responsible for helping revive the spirit of Iran's glorious past in the Pahlavi era. General Reza Khan is particularly said to have been moved by Pope's Persian nationalist speech in 1925. ["(re)Framing Rapid Modernities: American Historians of Iranian Architecture, Phyllis Ackerman and Arthur Pope" by Talinn Grigor. Arris, Vol 15, p39-55.] (p.41-42)In 1964, during a state visit to Iran, Professor Pope and Dr. Ackerman were formally invited to move The Asia Institute in Shiraz as an independent research center of publication and study, which would be housed in the Narenjestan, the beautiful compound of the Ghavam ol-Molk Shirazi. They accepted this generous offer and following months of planning, packing and organization, they returned permanently to Iran in 1966.

Professor Pope and Dr. Ackerman were to spend their final days in Iran and upon their death, they were provided with a magnificent mausoleum built in Professor Pope Park on the banks of the Zayandeh River in their beloved city of Isfahan. This unique tribute by Iran for two of America's pioneer scholars of Persian studies, and their remarkable achievements during lives dedicated to art, culture, beauty and heritage, is best told in the biography of Professor Pope and Dr. Ackerman, edited by Noël Siver and Jay & Sumi Gluck.

Notes

ee also

*Famous Americans in Iran