Sheila Blair (b. 1948)

In Varamin: 1978, 2014
Repository: Archnet, Artstor

Sheila Blair received her PhD in Art History and Middle Eastern Studies from Harvard University in 1980 (fig. 1). Her doctoral dissertation, titled “The Ilkhanid Shrine Complex at Natanz, Iran,” focused on the Shrine of Shaykh ʿAbdosamad (map) and became the first of many publications highlighting her research on the art and architecture of Iran and Central Asia (fig. 2).

Figure 1. Sheila Blair and Jonathan Bloom on a research trip in Jordan, 1976.
Figure 2. Looking down on the Shrine of Shaykh ʿAbdosamad at Natanz. Photograph by Blair and Bloom taken together from the minaret.

Her major book projects include Islamic Calligraphy, the three-volume Grove Encyclopedia of Islamic Art and Architecture (co-authored with her husband and colleague Jonathan Bloom), and Text and Image in Medieval Persian Art. The former two publications received the Islamic Republic of Iran’s World Prize for the Book of the Year in 2008 and 2014, respectively (fig. 3).

Figure 3. Blair during the reception for the Book of the Year Award in 2014 and with students and Bloom at Viar.

Blair first visited Varamin in 1978 while studying Ilkhanid architecture as a doctoral student and eventually returned for further research in 2014 (figs. 4–5). She has written two important essays on Varamin. The first, published in 2014, discusses the history and significance of the Emamzadeh Yahya’s 663/1265 luster mihrab (now in Honolulu) and demonstrates how inscriptions enable works of art to be examined as primary sources (fig. 6). The second, published in 2016, explores Varamin’s Ilkhanid period and the role architecture plays alongside textual sources in reconstructing histories.

Figure 4. Looking across a then empty field toward the Emamzadeh Yahya complex. Photograph by Blair and Bloom, 1978.
Figure 5. The tomb of Emamzadeh Yahya. Photograph by Blair and Bloom, 2014.
Figure 6. The Emamzadeh Yahya’s luster mihrab and a detail of the attached luted lettering (see Blair 2016, p. 419). Photographs by Blair and Bloom taken during their residency at Shangri La in Honolulu, 2009.

Throughout the course of her career, many of Blair’s larger projects and appointments were completed alongside her husband Jonathan Bloom. Notably, the two shared the inaugural Norma Jean Calderwood University Chair of Islamic and Asian Art at Boston College, as well as the Hamad bin Khalifa Endowed Chair of Islamic Art at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Practical resources:

Sources:

  • Blair, Sheila. The Ilkhanid Shrine Complex at Natanz, Iran. Harvard Middle East Papers, Classical Series no. 1. Cambridge: Harvard University, 1986. [WorldCat]
  • Blair, Sheila. The Monumental Inscriptions from Early Islamic Iran and Transoxiana. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1992. [WorldCat]
  • Blair, Sheila S. Islamic Calligraphy. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2006. [WorldCat] [JSTOR]
  • Blair, Sheila S. and Jonathan M. Bloom, eds. Grove Encyclopedia of Islamic Art & Architecture. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. [Oxford Reference]
  • Blair, Sheila. Text and Image in Medieval Persian Art. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2014. [WorldCat] [JSTOR]
  • Blair, Sheila. “Art as Text: The Luster Mihrab in the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art.” In No Tapping around Philology: A Festschrift in Honor of Wheeler McIntosh Thackston Jr.’s 70th Birthday, edited by Alireza Korangy and Daniel J. Sheffield, 407–35. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2014. [WorldCat] [Academia]
  • Blair, Sheila. “Architecture as a Source for Local History in the Mongol Period: The Example of Warāmīn.” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 26, 1–2 (2016): 215–28. [JSTOR]

Related pages:

Alisala Nunes BA Art History, University of California, Los Angeles, 2024; Curatorial Assistant, 33 Arches

Citation: Alisala Nunes, “Sheila Blair (b. 1948).” Photographers entry in The Emamzadeh Yahya at Varamin: An Online Exhibition of an Iranian Shrine, directed and edited by Keelan Overton. 33 Arches Productions, January 15, 2025. Host: Khamseen: Islamic Art History Online.