Good day I’m Elena and thanks to be here on Alessandro III di Macedonia.
Today I’ve a sad news to share with you: two days ago Sir John Boardman, OBE FBA Hon RA, Emeritus Lincoln Professor of Classical Art and Archaeology at the University of Oxford and an Honorary Fellow of the Magdalene College Cambridge for 40 years, passed away (20 August 1927 – 23 May 2024).
Classical art historian, specialist in Greek pottery. Boardman was born to Frederick Archibald Boardman and Clara Wells (Boardman). He graduated from Magdalene College, Cambridge with a B. A. in 1948. He served in the Intelligence Corps, British Army, 1950-52, rising to second lieutenant. In 1951 he was awarded an M.A. (his highest degree) from Cambridge in 1951. The following year he married Sheila Joan Lyndon Stanford. Boardman was named assistant director at the British School at Athens, Athens, in1952. He participated in the excavations at Chios, 1953-55. In 1955 he left to become the assistant keeper (curator) at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford University. He was named reader in Classical Archaeology at Oxford in 1959. He was named a fellow (subwarden) at Merton College in 1963. Boardman worked on a second dig at Tocra, Libya for the 1964-65 season. He was Visiting professor, Columbia University, in 1965. Boardman was named a British Academy fellow beginning in 1969. In 1978 he became Lincoln College Fellow and Lincoln Professor of Classical Archaeology and Art. He named professor of ancient history, Royal Academy of Arts, in 1990. In 1994 Boardman became professor emeritus at Oxford.
Dictionary of Art Historians
Selected publications (source Wikipedia.org)
The Cretan Collection in Oxford (1961)
Excavations at Emporio, Chios (1964)
The Greeks Overseas (1st ed. 1964; rev. ed. 1973; 3rd ed. 1980; 4th ed. 1999)
The Cretan Collection in Oxford (1961) The Date of the Knossos Tablets (1963) Island Gems (1963)
Excavations at Tocra (with J. Hayes, 1966, 1973)
Archaic Greek Gems (1968)
Greek Gems and Finger Rings (1970, 2001)
Greek Burial Customs (1971) with D.C. Kurtz
CVA Ashmolean Museum 3 (1975) CVA Castle Ashby, with M. Robertson (1980)
The Diffusion of Classical Art in Antiquity, a volume based on his series of Andrew Mellon Lectures at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. in 1993.
4 Handbooks on Greek Vase Painting
3 Handbooks on Greek Sculpture
10 handbooks and collection catalogues on ancient gems and rings
Persia and the West (2000)
The History of Greek Vases (2001)
The Archaeology of Nostalgia (2002)
Greece and the Hellenistic World (2002)
The World of Ancient Art (2006)
The Marlborough Gems (2009)
The Relief Plaques of Central Asia and China (2009/10)
The Triumph of Dionysos (2014)
The Greeks in Asia (2015)
Greek Art, ‘The World of Art Library’ series (first ed. 1964; latest ed. 2016)
Alexander the Great: From His Death to the Present Day (Princeton University Press, 2019)
The Triumph of Dionysos: Convivial Processions, from Antiquity to the Present Day (2014)
A Classical Archaeologist’s Life: The Story So Far: An Autobiography (2020)
I’m sorry that this great world-famous scholar and archaeologist has left us. I offer my deepest condolences to his family, his loved ones, his colleagues. His books are worth reading even if unfortunately many have not yet been published in Italian.
Alessandro III di Macedonia 