John Alexander Pope


John Alexander Pope was a prominent scholar of Asian art, particularly Chinese and Japanese blue-and-white ceramics. He spent most of his career at the Freer Gallery of Art in Washington.
Pope was born in Detroit, Michigan, and as a young adult, he attended Yale College where he attained his bachelor's degree in English literature. Before graduation, however, he was active in the China International Famine Relief Commission. While serving in the Commission, he was sent to the Yellow River valley where he surveyed famine conditions. This allowed him to see China firsthand and also meet Alan Priest who later became the curator of Far Eastern Ceramics at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Pope later attributed meeting Priest in Beijing as the most influential factor in determining his eventual, life-long field of study of blue-and-white Asian porcelains.
Pope pursued graduate studies at Harvard where he studied the history, archaeology, and languages of China and Japan. He was awarded his master's degree in 1940 and his Ph. D. in 1955. Pope took a leave from his studies in 1945 through 1946 to serve in the Marine Corps Reserve. With the rank of Captain, he worked in the Corps in China as a Chinese language translator.
Pope joined the Freer in 1943 and worked as an Associate in Research. From 1946 he was hired as the Assistant Director and served in that position until 1962 when he became the museum's director. Pope's deep interest in the Asian porcelains ceramics prompted him to establish criteria and a methodology for stylistic and dating analysis of 14th and 15th blue-and-white porcelains.
Beginning in the 1960s, Pope took many trips to Japan which resulted in his research slowly shifting to the study of Japanese ceramics.
Pope retired in 1971 while simultaneously continuing at the Freer as the Director Emeritus of Research Coordinator for Far Eastern Ceramics.