Van Derpool, James G.

Professor Emeritus of Architecture, James Grote Van Derpool was born in 1903. He received his bachelor of architecture degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1927 and his master's degree in fine arts from Harvard in 1940. Before completing his master's degree, he conducted research at the American Academy in Rome in 1928 and at the Atelier Gromort of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, in 1929. In addition, he practiced architecture in Boston and taught the history of architecture at Renssalaer Polytechnic Institute before joining the faculty of the University of Illinois in 1932.

Professor Van Derpool was the head of the Department of Art at the University of Illinois from 1938 to 1946. In 1945 and 1946, he served as chairman of the committee for selection of a new president of the university. In 1946, he succeeded Talbot Hamlin as librarian of the Avery Library at Columbia University, serving as head of the library from 1946 to 1959. Between 1959 and 1961, Van Derpool was also Acting Dean and then Associate Dean of the School of Architecture at Columbia.

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