Joseph Lindon Smith’s Persepolis Paintings: Their Conservation & Exhibition

Join us to celebrate the new installation in the ISAC Museum of Joseph Lindon Smith’s Persepolis Paintings. Smith, an American artist renowned for his faithful renderings of archaeological subjects, created six monumental paintings at the site of Persepolis in 1935 at the invitation of ISAC founder and then director James Henry Breasted. At Persepolis Smith joined ISAC’s Persian Expedition, who at the time was carrying out the first scientifically controlled excavation of this great Achaemenid city, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, in present-day southwestern Iran. Using the eleven and a half meters of rolled-up canvas that traveled with him to Persepolis, Smith executed all six paintings freehand using the dry-brush technique to achieve greater realism, especially when rendering the textured surface of the stone sculpture. Thanks to recent conservation of the paintings, carried out by Third Coast Conservation L. Liparini Studio, to ensure their stability and preservation in perpetuity, three of the paintings are now being installed for long-term display in the ISAC Museum’s Persian Gallery, placing them in dialogue with the monumental sculpture and portable finds from Persepolis excavated by ISAC’s expedition.

This celebratory event will begin in Breasted Hall with a presentation by ISAC Museum curator Kiersten Neumann, as lead of the project, on Smith and the history of the paintings, followed by a conversation with ISAC conservator Laura D’Alessandro and Third Coast Conservation conservators Dorota Bobek and Elena King on the conservation performed on the paintings. This will be followed by an unveiling of the paintings in the Persian Gallery and a reception in the Mesopotamian Gallery.

The conservation and exhibition of the Persepolis paintings has been made possible by a principal gift from the Ashtiani-Bonebrake Family, alongside the encouragement and support of Smith's granddaughter, Linden Gasper, and her husband, Charles J. Gasper.

Host or Publisher The Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures