Roberts, Laurance P.

Laurance Page Roberts was born in Bala Cynwyd, PA, 1 October 1907. His grandfather, George Brook Roberts (1833-1897) had been President of the Pennsylvania Railroad and his father, George Brinton Roberts, a coal magnate. Laurance Roberts attended the Montgomery School in Philadelphia and St George's School in Rhode Island before entering Princeton in 1925. He graduated from Princeton University in 1929 (magna cum laude), a classmate and friend of John D. Rockefeller III (1906-1978). After a year of post-graduate work, Roberts accepted a position at the Pennsylvania Museum of Art (now the Philadelphia Museum of Art). Without specialized training in Asian art, Roberts was asked if he would work in the Chinese department in 1930. Two years later his father sent him on a study tour of Japan and China. In China he met Harold Acton (1904-1994) who was teaching at the National University in Beijing. In 1934 Laurance Roberts was appointed curator of the Oriental art department of the Brooklyn Museum. In 1937 he married Isabel Milliken Spaulding, a Vassar alumna in the Education Department. She was born in Springfield, 10 July 1911, to Morrill Spaulding and Helen Marie Amstrong. The two traveled widely for the museum and their research. In 1938 Roberts was appointed Director of the Museum, a position he held until World War II. Beginning in 1942, Roberts served as a captain in army intelligence, his wife taking over his museum duties until 1946. That year the Roberts moved to Rome, where he was director of the American Academy. In 1960 Roberts retired, returning briefly to New York to be the first director of the State Council of the Arts, 1960-61, before moving back to Europe, living in Venice, Paris and London. In 1967 Roberts published his Connoisseur's Guide to Japanese Museums. His Dictionary of Japanese Artists, published in 1976, remains an important resource for biographies of artists from Japan. In 1988 the Roberts moved to Baltimore where Laurance died in 2002, and Isabel three years later, in 2005.

Laurance P. Roberts, Art historian, art administrator.

Art historian, art administrator.

Laurance P. Roberts was a scholar of Asian art who served as director of the Brooklyn Museum and later of the American Academy in Rome. He was born in Bala-Cynwyd, Pennsylvania and was educated at Princeton University. His first employment was as a cataloger working on the John G. Johnson Collection for the Philadelphia Museum of Art. From 1930 to 1933 he worked as assistant curator of Oriental art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and studied Chinese language and art in China. In 1934, he joined the Brooklyn Museum as curator of its Oriental art department.

In 1937 he married Isabel Spaulding, who was employed in the museum's education department. He was promoted to director of the Brooklyn Museum in 1938 expanding over the years its educational activities and exhibitions. From 1942 to 1946, he served in Army Intelligence in Washington, while his wife took over the museum's directorship. From 1947 to 1960, he was the director of the American Academy in Rome.

In 1960, when the New York State Council on the Arts was formed he helped to plan programs in the visual and performing arts. In later years, he made repeated journeys to Japan for scholarly activity and writing. The couple who lived in many European cities moved to Baltimore in 1988. His writings include three books that came out in those later years: a ''Guide to Japanese Museums'' (1967), a ''Dictionary of Japanese Artists'' (1977), and ''The Bernard Berenson Collection of Oriental Art at Villa I Tatti'' (1991).