Photographs taken by Carol Bier and Lionel Bier, comprising two binders of black and white 35mm negatives and contact sheets as well as a collection of images cut out from contact sheets and organized by site, documenting both pre-Islamic and Islamic Iranian architectural monuments, taken 1975-1976. Focus primarily on the Sasanian sites of Fars province, focusing on built monuments, rock reliefs, and rock-cut monuments. Sites include: Firuzabad, Naqshi-Rustam, Naqshi-Rajab, Bishapur, Sarvistan, and Taq-i Bustan. Also includes a small number of ethnographic images by Carol Bier, predominanly of the Qashqai and Mamasani. Some of these images have been used previously in publications by both the authors themselves as well as other scholars.
Arrangement:
Organized into two series:
Series 1: Contact Sheets and Negatives
Series 2: Contact Prints
Biographical / Historical:
Carol Bier is an historian of Islamic art who is Research Associate at The Textile Museum in Washington, DC, where she served as Curator for Eastern Hemisphere Collections from 1984-2001. Her research focuses on Islamic patterns as intersections of art and mathematics.
The late Lionel D. Bier, art historian and archaeologist, taught art history at Brooklyn College for more than 30 years. He was primarily active in researching the archaeological record of pre- and early-Islamic Iran. Among his noted publications are: Sarvistan: A Study in Early Iranian Architecture (1986) and The Sassanian Palaces and their Influence in Early Islam, from Ars Orientalis (Vol. 23, 1993)
Local Numbers:
FSA A2008.01
Related Materials:
Lionel Bier Collection. Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Gift of the Estate of Lionel Bier.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
Rights:
Permission to publish, quote, or reproduce must be secured from the repository.
Restricted: Bishapur images, until permission by granted by Iranian authorities.
Carol Bier and Lionel Bier Collection. FSA.A2008.01. National Museum of Asian Art Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Gift of Carol Bier.
