In Memoriam: Robert J. Poor

Robert J. Poor, professor emeritus of art history at the University of Minnesota, passed away on February 11, 2025. During his 45 years at the university, Bob taught classes in Chinese and Japanese painting, Japanese prints, Asian ceramics, Indian art, Connoisseurship, his specialty, Chinese bronzes, as well as courses in theories and methods in art history. His initial interest in Asian art was sparked by frequent childhood visits to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and then confirmed during a year spent living in the Kyoto-Nara area in Japan while in the military. Upon returning from Japan he received a MA in art history from Boston University and went on for a PhD at the University of Chicago.

His published works include catalogs of the Arthur M. Sackler Collection of Chinese Bronzes, The Asian Antiquities in the Honolulu Academy of Fine Arts, Ancient Chinese Bronzes in the Collection of the University of Chicago and several exhibition catalogs of Modern Japanese Prints, Jade, Indian Sculpture and Far Eastern Art in Minnesota Collections. He published articles in English and Chinese in several of the better-known periodicals in his field. He lectured throughout the United States and in the Far East. In 1973 he was an invited guest of the People’s Republic of China. His delegation of ten American scholars was one of the first to visit China following President Nixon’s normalization of relations between the United States and China. Dr. Poor’s reactions to that trip were featured for a week on National Public Radio.

Bob’s love of things Asian led him into the art of Bonsai and he served on the board of the Minnesota Bonsai Society. After garnering a few ribbons at the State Fair he was encouraged to collect and style more than 100 miniature trees and founded a special group called the Friends of Penjing, which was devoted to the study of the Chinese form of bonsai.

Bob inspired many students and will be remembered for being “one of a kind.”