1942-1944 Curator of Textiles, Copper Union Museum, New York
1945~1947 Personnel Officer, Office of War Information, London and Luxembourg
1945-1946 Monuments Officer, Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives Division, SHAEF, Frankfort and Berlin. Assisted in recovery of works of art hidden by Germans during war
1947-1956 Associate, then Curator, Department of Textiles, Cleveland Museum of Art
1956-1968 Curator of Textiles and Near Eastern Art, Cleveland Museum of Art
1956-19?? Adjunct Professor of Near Eastern Art, Case-Western Reserve University
1968-1979 Curator of Textiles, Cleveland Museum of Art
1979-1981 Chief Curator of Textiles and Islamic Art, Cleveland Museum of Art
This information was gathered from items in Shepherd's clipping file. Information may be missing or not entirely accurate due to age.
Dorothy Shepherd (1916 - 1992) was one of the leading scholars in the field of Ancient Near Eastern and Islamic Art. As a student, first at the University of Michigan (B.A. - 1939 and M.A.- 1940) then at New York University's Institute of Fine Arts (PhD), she focused primarily in Islamic Art and Hispano-Islamic textiles. While working on her PhD, she was appointed the Assistant to the Curator at the Cooper Union Museum for the Art of Decoration to manage the textile collection. In 1944, instead of accepting a Rackham fellowship at the University of Michigan, she traveled overseas to work with the Office of War Information. This lead to her eventual transfer into a position as a Monument and Fine Art officer in Berlin until 1946. It is unclear whether Shepherd finished her PhD, but at the beginning of her tenure at the museum she was still actively pursuing her education.
In 1947, Shepherd officially began her work at the CMA. She initially started as the Associate Curator of Textiles, then the Curator of Textiles, and finally the Chief Curator of Textiles and Islamic Art in 1979. During this time, she adopted the museum's Near Eastern art collection and became an Adjunct Professor on the topic at Case Western Reserve University. Along with her role as a professor, she was eager to share her knowledge, in the U.S. and abroad, through various conferences, exhibitions, seminars, lectures, and more paired with countless articles in The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art and other publications. When she retired, in 1981, Sherman Lee stated that "under her direction, the Museum's textile holdings have developed into unparalleled assemblies of beautiful and important works." Even after her 34 year tenure, she still served as a research consultant to the museum and continued her work, focusing specifically on Sasanian iconography.
For a broader biographical sketch, see the miscellaneous resources.
For a complete list of Shepherd's published work, please download the attached file.
As the Curator of Textiles, Shepherd acquired quite a number of pieces during her tenure. Below, I've listed some highlights of what was acquired including some of the top textiles in the collection, a Delmar textile, and two Hispano-Islamic textiles, which was an avid interest of Shepherd's.
For more information on each of the acquisitions, feel free to click the title and visit the Collection Online page. There you can find more information which includes the known bibliography on our pieces.