Documenting Persepolis and the Paintings of Joseph Lindon Smith
OI Museum Special Exhibition Opening Lecture
Kiersten Neumann, OI

From 1931–39 the OI Iranian (Persian) expedition carried out the first scientifically controlled archaeological excavations at Persepolis, the great Achaemenid city founded by Darius I (533–486 BC) and sacked by Alexander III of Macedon in 330 BC. OI founder and then director James Henry Breasted’s invitation to Joseph Lindon Smith (1863–1950) to visit and paint the ruins of Persepolis was indicative of the innovative documentary efforts that defined the OI’s fieldwork, which at the time also included still photography and film, both on the ground and aerial. Smith, an American artist renowned for his faithful renderings of archaeological subjects, created with stark realism portraits of the Apadana reliefs and in vibrant polychrome vast landscape scenes of the monumental terrace—on display in the OI Museum’s special exhibition, “Joseph Lindon Smith: The Persepolis Paintings.” Yet the expeditions’ photographs and Smith’s paintings belong to a long history of recording this city’s ruins. Join Kiersten Neumann, OIM curator, in an exploration of Smith’s Persepolis paintings and the artistic corpus to which they belong.

Originally aired live in February 2021

This lecture celebrates the opening of the OI Museum Special Exhibition, "Joseph Lindon Smith: The Persepolis Paintings," curated by Kiersten Neumann and on display January 27–August 28, 2022: https://oi100.uchicago.edu/jls.

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c. OI, 2022