Norma Jean Calderwood, 84, leading patron of Boston arts
One earthenware bowl from the ninth or 10th century has the Arabic word for ``harmony" inscribed in its interior, surrounded by images of birds. Another emblazons the words of the Prophet Mohammed in black Arabic script around its rim: ``Modesty is a branch of faith, and faith is in paradise."
The two pieces are part of the vast collection of Islamic art -- bowls, paintings, and metalware -- Norma Jean Calderwood donated to Harvard University Art Museums .
The former Boston College lecturer combed the world for the treasures she ultimately donated, and her trips often brought her to some of the more dangerous parts of the world.
``She was almost fearless with her travels," said Jeffrey Howe , a fine arts professor at Boston College .
Mrs. Calderwood, a prominent figure in the Boston art community, died Aug. 31 at a nursing facility in Rye, N.H. She was 84. The cause of death was not known, but she had Alzheimer's disease.
For decades, Islamic art did not receive much attention in the United States, but Mrs. Calderwood voraciously studied its rich history and helped popularize it on the art scene, colleagues said.
``The art of ceramics was one of the major achievements of the Islamic world," Mrs. Calderwood wrote in lecture notes excerpted in the Boston Phoenix in 2004. ``From lowly kitchen and storage pots of pre-Islamic times there developed wares that in technical inventiveness can stand alongside any in the world. This achievement is very little known or very little understood in the West, where connoisseurs of fine ceramics have looked continually to the Far East for the standards by which ceramics are to be judged."
The Sterling, Colo., native met her husband, Stanford, at the University of Colorado, and the couple moved first to New Hampshire, then Cambridge. They became friends with neighbors Julia and Paul Child before settling in Belmont, friends and colleagues said.
Mrs. Calderwood volunteered for local museums before earning her bachelor's degree from Boston University in 1963, friends said.
The Moorish architecture and art she saw on a trip to Spain in the late 1950s sparked her interest in Islamic art and led her to follow the route of the Crusades, pushing eastward and ultimately visiting 15 countries, according to a 2002 Globe story.
She bought her first piece of art in Tehran, while on a trip organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, and it inspired her to audit art history courses and later enroll as a doctoral student at Harvard University. She made four trips to Iran and visited Iraq, Egypt, and Afghanistan during the 1960s, '70s, and '80s, according to the Boston College Chronicle , a biweekly faculty and staff newspaper . The Iran hostage crisis brought a halt to her dissertation research, however, according to Howe.
``If she had a question about something, she got on an airplane," said Sheila Blair, who jointly holds the Norma Jean Calderwood Chair in Islamic and Asian Art with her husband, Jonathan Bloom. ``And she went to these really exotic places."
Harvard University displays her art in its Arthur M. Sackler Museum in an exhibit called ``Closely Focused, Intensely Felt: Selections from the Norma Jean Calderwood Collection of Islamic Art." It reflects her interest in 14th- through 16th-century manuscript painting from Shiraz and her fondness for bowls made by Persian potters dating to the ninth century. The religious inscriptions on most of the bowls offer an important glimpse into religious history and literature because so many of the writings from that era were damaged over many turbulent years, according to colleagues and published reports.
Christopher Millis , a Boston Phoenix critic, described her in a review of the exhibit as ``the rarest of collectors -- both smart and rich, she put her time and energy where her mouth went, and that's reflected in every aspect of the show, from the range and quality of what she procured to the lucid and informative wall texts."
At Boston College, she was a spirited lecturer whose classes filled up quickly.
``I heard from many students that she was very inspiring," Howe said. She taught there from 1983 to 1996 and also lectured at the Museum of Fine Arts, where a courtyard is named in her honor.
When she spoke, she sought to convey ``an openness to cultures, an excitement about different kinds of art," Howe said.
She and her husband ``were two of the greatest philanthropists that Boston has seen in years," said family friend Peter Wensberg . Her husband died in May 2002.
The couple were also longtime patrons of theater in Boston, particularly the Huntington Theatre. They endowed several programs and positions there. In honor of their contributions, the newest theater in Boston was named the Stanford Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts in 2004.
Two months before his death, Stanford Calderwood donated 120 of his wife's works to the Sackler Museum. ``We all need to learn more and better appreciate the achievements of the Islamic world," said James Cuno, then Harvard University Art Museums director, in a Globe story six months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
In the same story, her husband said the gift was ``my way of paying tribute to her."
Mrs. Calderwood leaves a sister, Janice Smith of Littleton, Colo. A private service was held. 