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(re)Framing Rapid Modernities: American Historians of Iranian Architecture, Phyllis Ackerman and Arthur Pope TALINN GRIGOR I n the mid-1920s, two American art historians were introduced to the Iranian cultural landscape; they were to remain there even after their death. Phyllis Ackerman (1893-1977) and her husband Arthur Upham Pope (18811969 ) devoted most of their professional lives to the research and publication ofiranian art, architecture and archaeology. They made two lasting contributions; one was their survey of Persian art, originally published in 1938-39 in six volumes . The twelve-volume collection, titled Survey ofPersian Art: From Prehistoric Time to the Present (hereafter Survey) was reprinted in 1964 and remains the single most substantial collection on Iran's material culture to this day. The second major contribution was Ackerman- -Pope's role in mounting several international congresses and exhibitions on the artistic heritage of Iran. These events were affiliated with the American Institute of Persian Art and Archeology in New York, in turn, founded by their shared efforts in 1928. Enlarged and renamed as the Asia Institute, it was relocated to Shiraz in 1966. Soon after their deaths, the Society for National Heritage (hereafter SNH), under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture and Art of Iran, built their joint mausoleum in the historically and architecturally rich city of central Iran, Isfahan (jig. I).' A mirror to their philosophy, the tomb structure was the SNH's last major project erected before the fall of the Pahlavi royal dynasty in the 1979 Revolution. The two Pahlavi kings-Reza Shah (r. 1921-1941) and his son and successor, Mohammad-Reza Shah (r. 1941-1979)-forcibly westernized and effectively modernized the society that they ruled, each by various degrees and techniques. In this project of rapid economic and cultural development, western scholars and scientists proved to be pivotal to their plans of modernization, for the Shah was persuaded that "in our march toward this Great Civilization, Iran was one vast workshop."2 Between 1925 and 1977, while Ackerman-Pope's undertakings in the form of publications, lectures and exhibitions were instrumental to the making of modern institutions and practices within the context of the Shahs' modernizing plan, the underemphasized fact that Pope was one of the most active dealers of Iranian art renders their place in history an uneasy one. Nevertheless, they imprinted the development of the country's cultural legacy more profoundly than any other westerner in twentieth-century Iran. In this essay, I first analyze Pope's most influential lecture delivered in Tehran in 1925-a public speech that, possibly, altered the architectural theory and practice of modern Iran. A briefintroduction to Ackerman-Pope's involvement in a number of international congresses and archaeological projects will reveal their role in the representation of 'Persian Art' as a discourse. Then, I will bring to the fore the details of Ackerman's life and work as an American feminist scholar who was undermined in historiography both before and after her death. As a perfect example, the petty quarrels between Ackerman and Pope over the typeset of the Survey will demonstrate the centrality of cultural manifestations in making a discourse on 'national' art. Finally, I will present the double-domed mausoleum ofthe historians as a gendered metaphor of their long and often turbulent career. Methodologically, this ARRIS 39 TALINN GRIGOR Fig. I. Mausoleum ofPhyllis Ackerman and Arthur Pope in Isfahan, I969-I977 (Author, I999) article raises the following question: Within the larger project of Iranian modernization, how can we voice Ackerman's authority, when all we have to refer to is "what Pope said"? How should Ackerman be '(re)represented' when we know too well that the history written by/about "Arthur" is the only public domain of their private dynamics? In order to tackle this, I situate their joint tomb as an allegory of this simultaneously public and personal historiographical reconstruction. Both the tomb and the Survey complicate the examination of these 'gendered misrepresentations.' While Ackerman-Pope made a significant contribution to that history, they nevertheless handsomely nurtured the modernist myth of a utopian Iran-a future that would never come. They injected into the political regime the concept of revivalism and a...

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