Pope, John Alexander, 1906-1982

John Alexander Pope; born August 4, 1906, Detroit, Michigan; died September 18, 1982, Washington, D.C.; Director Emeritus of the Freer Gallery of Art and Oriental porcelains and bronzes expert. At the age of 21, Pope sailed on the Schooner Effie M. Morrissey with the Baffin Island Expedition in 1927, under the leadership of George Putnam. He graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy and Yale University. Shortly after graduation from Yale, he served in 1929 as a secretary to the American Red Cross Mission in China and also as an ambulance driver. It was during his time in China that he developed his career-long interest in Oriental art. When he returned to the U.S. in 1930, he worked for a time in a New York bank, but in 1932 started work in Chinese studies at Harvard University where he earned masters and doctoral degrees. He studied at the British Museum in London in 1938, and later lectured in Chinese art at Columbia University. He joined the Freer Gallery as a researcher in 1943, but left shortly thereafter to serve in the U.S. Marine Corps. He served as a translator in China from 1943 to 1945, and was discharged as a captain. He returned to the Freer in 1946 and was named assistant director under then director Archibald Wenley. He was named director of the Freer in 1962 and retired in 1971. After retirement from the Freer, he served as an adviser on Oriental art to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, Virginia.