Islamic Architecture in Persia A London Exhibition Extracted from The London Illustrated News by Pope, Arthur Upham - 1933

London: London Illustrated News. Very Good. 1933. First Edition Thus. Hardcover. Vol. 182, No. 4894; 4 pages; A two page article (with two pages of unrelated material) with five photographic illustrations bound in marbled boards with blue leather spine and corners and pale blue endpapers. Two ex libris stamps on front endpapers. From the collection of Myron Bement Smith and his wife Katharine Dennis Smith. Myron Smith [1897-1970] was a classical archaeologist, architect, and art historian whose devotion to Islamic art and culture eventually led the Smiths to gather (or create) approximately 87,000 archival items. In youth, he worked as a draftsman for a Rochester architect. After service in the US Army Medical Corps in France during World War I, upon his return to the States, he once again worked as a architectural draftsman. Studies at Yale University from 1922 to 1926 followed, where he earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. AfterYale, he returned from Italy, where he studied on a Guggenheim Foundation Grant, becomming a registered architect in New York in 1931. He enrolled in Harvard University graduate school in 1929 pursuing a Master of Fine Arts degree. In April 1930, Smith was appointed Secretary of the newly created American Institute for Persian Art and Archaeology founded by Arthur Upham Pope and located in New York City. Without prior academic or work experience in Islamic art or architecture, Myron Smith's job consisted of designing publications, arranging lectures, organizing exhibitions and fund raising. That summer he arranged an independent study course at Harvard University on Persian Art and subsequently studied Persian language at Columbia University and attended graduate courses at the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University. His experiences and wide studies enabled Myron Smith to obtain a research fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies in 1933 to study Iranian Islamic architecture. Smith left for Iran in 1933 accompanied by his new wife Katharine Dennis. They suffered a terrible motor vehicle accident in Iraq en route. The Smiths eventually arrived in Isfahan, Iran -- following a lengthy recuperation in Lebanon and Cyprus. And finally in Iran, they established their “Expedition House,” as Smith called it, in a rented faculty house at Stuart College. Smith’s research entailed meticulous photographic documentation of Islamic monuments and architectural sketches and drawings of many. He concentrated on the Isfahan area but also documented monuments elsewhere in Iran. Smith outfitted his station wagon as a combination camper and research vehicle in which he and his staff traveled widely. Katharine sometimes traveled with him but generally she remained in Isfahan managing the household and logistics for the “expedition.” The Smiths left Iran in 1937. His professional career from 1938 until his death in 1970 consisted of a series of temporary academic positions, contract work and government or academic sponsored lecture tours and photographic exhibits. He had a long lasting relationship with the Library of Congress where he served as an Honorary Consultant from 1938 to 1940 and again from 1948 to 1970; from 1943 to 1944 he was Chief of the Iranian Section at the Library. In 1947 Smith completed his PhD thesis for The Johns Hopkins University on the vault in Persian architecture, but did not take the doctoral degree. He did publish several articles relating to the Islamic monuments of Iran and developed an extensive network of professional and social contacts that dated from his early student days, growing markedly during his time at the Persian Institute and later in Iran. Really, his major focus from 1938 onward was on building the extraordinary archive of which this item was a part. .