Arthur Upham Pope and his wife Phyllis Ackerman were pioneers in the study of the arts of Asia, with a paramount dedication to Persian art, history, heritage and culture, and its interrelations. Their efforts led to the establishment in 1925 of the American Institute for Persian Art and Archaeology, which later became the Asia Institute, in New York City and their unique programs of research, publications, exhibitions and educational instruction continued at the Institute and around the world until their retirement. The Asia Institute was to blossom once again after the reissue in 14 volumes of their monumental A Survey of Persian Art, which was first published in mammoth folio tomes by Oxford University Press in 1939, and reissued in 1964 under the direction of Jay Gluck, Asia Institute Books, with Meiji Shobo publishers of Japan and Ekram Manafzadeh of Iran. Later that year, during a State Visit to Iran, Professor Pope and Dr. Ackerman were formally invited to move The Asia Institute to Shiraz as an independent research center of publication and study, which would be housed in the Narenjestan, the beautiful hereditary compound of the Ghavam ul-Molk Shirazi. They accepted this generous offer and following months of planning, packing and organization, they returned permanently to Iran in 1966. Professor Pope and Dr. Ackerman were to spend their final days in Iran and upon their sad demise, they were provided with a magnificent mausoleum built in Professor Pope Park on the banks of the Zayandeh-Rud River in their beloved city of Isfahan. This unique tribute by Iran for two of America's pioneer scholars of Persian studies, and their remarkable achievements during lives dedicated to art, culture, beauty and heritage, is best told in the biography of Professor Pope and Dr. Ackerman, edited by Noël Siver and Jay & Sumi Gluck. In keeping with Professor Pope's last wishes that an authorized biography of their lives and times be made part of the permanent record of their magnum opus, this historic biography forms an unnumbered companion volume in the continuing tradition of A Survey of Persian Art.