Professor Sir John Boardman (1927-2024)
Professor Sir John Boardman (1927-2024)
With great sorrow the Classical Art Research Centre has received news of the death of Professor Sir John Boardman at the age of 96. John was a classical archaeologist of colossal stature who mentored many generations of Oxford graduates.
He was educated at Chigwell School in Essex and Magdalene College Cambridge during and immediately after the War. Following his National Service, he carried out research in Greece and served as Assistant Director of the British School at Athens from 1952 to 1955. In that year he was appointed Assistant Keeper at the Ashmolean Museum. He became Reader in Classical Archaeology at Oxford in 1959 and in 1978 he was appointed Lincoln Professor of Classical Archaeology and Art in succession to Martin Robertson.
John had excavated early in his career at Emporio on Chios and Tocra in Libya, but his interests were principally art-historical. Their thematic and geographical breadth was immense, ranging from vase-painting and engraved gems of all periods to Central Asian sculpture and ancient Chinese bronzes. His global perspective was outlined in The World of Ancient Art (2006). But it was his expertise in Archaic and Classical Greek art, and especially Attic pottery, which secured his fame. He received a knighthood in 1989. His sixty-year relationship with Thames and Hudson produced more than a dozen books, including seven volumes on Greek vase-painting and sculpture in the World of Arts series, which were translated into several languages. In all he wrote some 45 books, co-authored 17 more, and produced well over three hundred articles and book chapters.
John was a leader in the international community of classical archaeology. He helped to shepherd the Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae to successful completion – a project of monumental scale and complexity – and with Robertson he was closely involved in the formation of the Beazley Archive as a scholarly resource after Sir John Beazley’s death in 1970. Following his retirement in 1994, John continued to be affiliated with the Beazley Archive, later the Classical Art Research Centre, working there virtually every day until the pandemic began in 2020. From this base he completed numerous projects on engraved gems – his most consistent research interest – many in collaboration with Dr Claudia Wagner.
Our condolences go to John’s children, Julia and Mark, and his grandchildren.
