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Pauline Simmons

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Pauline Simmons
Born(1893-05-19)May 19, 1893
Clarks Mills, Pennsylvania, U.S.
DiedOctober 1985(1985-10-00) (aged 92)
OccupationCurator
AwardsGuggenheim Fellowship (1957)
Academic background
EducationPennsylvania State College
Academic work
Sub-discipline
East Asian textiles
InstitutionsMetropolitan Museum of Art

Pauline Simmons (May 19, 1893 – October 1985) was an American curator. After acquiring a collection of Chinese textiles while an expatriate in China, she was hired at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and became a curator of East Asian textiles there. She co-authored Chinese Textiles (1934) with Alan Priest and was a 1957 Guggenheim Fellow.

Biography

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Simmons was born on May 19, 1893, in Clarks Mills, Pennsylvania.[1] After attending the Pennsylvania State College[2] from 1910 to 1912, she worked as a public school teacher in Pennsylvania from 1913 to 1917.[1] She later worked at the United States Department of War from 1918 to 1919.[1]

With several relatives living in Nanjing, Simmons moved there in 1920.[2] She worked as an English teacher at the American High School in Nanjing (1920–1921) and later moved to Beijing to work as an English literature lecturer at China University (1922–1924).[1] During her time in China, she acquired a collection of Chinese textiles and learned to be fluent in Chinese.[2]

In 1925, Simmons returned to the United States with her textile collection, before starting work at Columbia University.[2] In 1928,[1] she was hired at the Metropolitan Museum of Art as Alan Priest's secretary.[2] She was later promoted to assistant in 1929 before becoming an assistant curator in 1931.[1] In 1953, she was promoted to associate curator.[1] In 1958, she retired from the Met "with only a meager pension".[2]

Simmons co-authored Chinese Textiles (1931) with Priest,[1] focusing on Chinese textile art from periods like the Han dynasty.[3] She also wrote Chinese Patterned Silks (1948).[1] In 1957,[4] she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship "for studies of 7th and 8th century Chinese and Japanese textiles".[1] Julia Meech remarked that both Simmons and Priest "were instrumental in building [the Met's] fine collection of Chinese and Japanese costumes and textiles".[2] Louis V. Ledoux, an art historian interested in textiles, once hired Simmons to assist him with inventory lists for his collection, specifically for help on specialized terms.[2] She also lectured on East Asian textiles, having once lectured about Chinese court robes at the Royal Ontario Museum in November 1946.[5]

Simmons died in October 1985.[2][6]

Works

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References

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  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Reports of the Secretary and Treasurer. John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. 1957. p. 105.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Meech, Julia (2022). "Louis V. Ledoux: Collector of Japanese Textiles". Impressions (43): 122. ISSN 1095-2136. JSTOR 27343753.
  3. 1 2 Fischer, Otto (1936). "Review of Chinese Textiles; Japanese Costume. An Exhibition of Nō Robes and Buddhist Vestments, Alan Priest". Artibus Asiae. 6 (1/2): 153–153. doi:10.2307/3248351. ISSN 0004-3648. JSTOR 3248351.
  4. ↑ "Pauline Simmons". Guggenheim Fellowships. Retrieved August 18, 2026.
  5. ↑ "Mandarins Marked Rank By Dragons On Robes". The Toronto Telegram. November 9, 1946. p. 12 – via Newspapers.com.
  6. ↑ Ancestry.com. U.S., Social Security Death Index, 1935-2014 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2014.
  7. ↑ Jayne, Horace H. F. (1932). "Review of Chinese Textiles". The American Magazine of Art. 24 (3): 243–239. ISSN 2151-254X. JSTOR 23935452.
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