John Pope-Hennessy

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This article is about the art historian. For his grandfather, the colonial administrator, see John Pope Hennessy.

Sir John Wyndham Pope-Hennessy
Born	December 13, 1913(1913-12-13) London, England
Died	November 31, 1994 (aged 80) Florence, Italy
Occupation	Art historian and museum director

Sir John Wyndham Pope-Hennessy (1913–1994) was a British art historian and museum director. He was a scholar of Italian Renaissance art. Many of his writings, including the tripartite Introduction to Italian Sculpture and his magnum opus, Donatello: Sculptor, are now considered classics in the field.

He was born in Belgravia, London, to Major-General Richard Pope-Hennessy and Dame Una Pope-Hennessy (née Birch). He was the eldest of two sons; his younger brother James Pope-Hennessy was a writer of note. He was educated at Downside School and read modern history at Balliol College, Oxford. At Oxford he was introduced by Logan Pearsall Smith (a family friend) to Kenneth Clark, who became a mentor to the young Pope-Hennessy. Upon graduation Pope-Hennessy embarked on what he referred to as his Wanderjahre, travelling in continental Europe and becoming acquainted with its great art collections, both public and private.

John Wyndham Pope-Hennessy served as the director of the Victoria and Albert Museum between 1967 and 1973, and then as the director of the British Museum from 1974 until 1976. His nickname to staff was "the Pope".

Traumatised by the murder of his brother James, Pope-Hennessy left the British Museum after only three years as director. Initially he withdrew to Tuscany, but was enticed by an offer from Metropolitan Museum of Art to head its department of European painting, and moved to New York. He combined this curatorial post with a professorship at New York University's Institute of Fine Arts, and enjoyed mixing with the city's high society. At 75 he retired and moved permanently to Florence, where he died five years later.

[edit] References

Higgins, John. “Pope Hennessy, Sir John Wyndham (1913-1994).” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: OUP, 2004.

Academic offices
Preceded by Ellis Waterhouse	Slade Professor of Fine Art, Oxford University 1956	Succeeded by Douglas Cooper
Preceded by Michael Levey	Slade Professor of Fine Art, Cambridge University 1964	Succeeded by Anthony Blunt
Cultural offices
Preceded by Trenchard Cox	Director of the Victoria and Albert Museum 1967–73	Succeeded by Roy Strong
Preceded by John Wolfenden	Director and Principal Librarian of the British Museum 1974–76	Succeeded by David Wilson