Correspondence as Director

The correspondence in this series primarily documents Pope's tenure as acting director and then director of the Fogg, Germanic and Semitic Museums between 1945 and 1948. Some of the folders also contain correspondence with Pope's predecessors at the Fogg, Edward Forbes and Paul J. Sachs. These letters were apparently transferred to Pope's files for the sake of continuity of knowledge and context in certain museum-related matters, such as long-term loans and various policies and decisions. This series also contains some correspondence related to Pope's service as advisor to the Carnegie Foundation in the 1930s.

The correspondence covers a range of topics, many of them related to the daily administration of the Fogg Museum. There are letters about Harvard and museum policies; budgets, expenditures and fund raising; appointments and staffing concerns; visiting scholars and lecturers; exhibitions at the Fogg and elsewhere; loans and purchases of works of art; museum publications; gifts to the Fogg; Visiting Committee meetings; and object storage and environmental conditions, among many topics. This series contains correspondence with George Stout, Rutherford J. Gettens and Richard Buck of the Fogg's conservation department, including letters from Gettens during his work at Los Alamos on the Manhattan Project. In addition, there is correspondence with many art dealers about works for sale and with colleagues at other museums about inter-museum loans and other matters.