John Alexander Pope
John Alexander Pope (born August 4, 1906 in Detroit ; died September 18, 1982 in New York City ) was an American art historian.
Life
John Alexander Pope attended Phillips Exeter Academy and Yale College and received a BA in literature. During his studies he was a Red Cross volunteer in the China International Famine Relief Commission and was employed in China as a driver of an ambulance vehicle. It was there that he became interested in the blue and white Asian porcelain . Pope studied Chinese and Japanese history at Harvard University and learned the basics of language. He received an MA in 1940 and his PhD in 1955. Pope was a soldier in the Marine Corps Reserve from 1945 to 1946 and served as a translator in the theater of the Pacific War in China with the rank of captain .
In 1948 Pope married the German émigré Annemarie Henle , who worked as an art historian and exhibition maker in the USA. They had two children. Pope worked from 1943 at the Freer Gallery of Art in Washington, DC as a research assistant. In 1946 he was appointed assistant to the director and in 1962 as museum director. He taught Chinese art history at Columbia University .
Pope was particularly interested in Asian porcelain from the 14th and 15th centuries, for which he developed determination criteria. In the 1960s he completed several research stays in Japan. Pope retired in 1971. In 1966 he received the North Star Order for his services to the collection of oriental art of the Swedish royal family and in 1971 a medal from the Oriental Ceramic Society in London.
Fonts (selection)
- with Archibald G. Wenley: China . Washington: Smithsonian Inst., 1944
- Fourteenth-century blue-and-white: a group of Chinese porcelains in the Topkapu Sarayi Müzesi, Istanbul . Washington: Smithsonian Inst., 1952
- Chinese Porcelains From the Ardebil Shrine . Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1956
- with Bo Gyllensvärd: Chinese art from the collection of HM King Gustaf VI Adolf of Sweden . New York: Asia Soc., 1966
- The Freer Gallery of Art . 1972
- with Fujio Koyama: Oriental Ceramics: The World's Great Collections . 1975
Web links
- Literature by and about John Alexander Pope in the WorldCat bibliographic database
- Ronald Smothers: John A. Pope Of Freer Art Gallery, Expert On Oriental Porcelain, Dies , NYT, September 20, 1982
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Pope, John Alexander |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American art historian and museum director |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 4th August 1906 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Detroit |
| DATE OF DEATH | September 18, 1982 |
| Place of death | New York City |