Henri Frankfort was born into a Jewish family in Amsterdam, Netherlands in 1887. He initially moved to London in 1924 to study under Egyptologist Flinders Petrie, subsequently lecturing and researching in the USA, Britain, and Europe, as well as regularly conducting fieldwork in Greece, Egypt, and Iraq. Frankfort was appointed Director of the Warburg Institute, University of London, in 1949, which had transferred from Hamburg, Germany in 1933, was incorporated into the University in 1944, and was now re-established as a distinguished academic institution in exile, with a unique focus on the study of cultural history and the role of images in global culture.
Archaeologist, Egyptologist and institutional director, Henri Frankfort was born in Amsterdam, Netherlands, into a Jewish family, on 24 February 1987; his father Benjamin Philippe Frankfort was a merchant in near eastern trade. He served in the Netherlands Army during the First World War. After the war, he studied history at the University of Amsterdam from 1919-21. After one year of studying for a masters degree he subsequently transferred to the University of London in 1924 to study under Egyptologist Flinders Petrie, returning to Netherlands to gain a PhD from the University of Leiden in 1927. As a student he met and married his first wife Henriette Groenewegen-Frankfort in 1923. The couple had one son, Jon Frankfort, born on 30 September 1929.
While still a student, in 1922, Frankfort was part of the British School of Archaeology’s expedition to Egypt, excavating the Middle Kingdom tombs of Qau el-Kebir under the supervision of Petrie. From 1924-1925 he was a student at the British School of Archaeology in Athens, working on the draft of his doctoral research. Between 1925-29 he served as Director of Excavations for the Egyptian Exploration Society, mainly working alongside British archaeologist John Pendlebury on excavations at el-Armarna, Abydos and Armant. In 1929 he was invited by American archaeologist James Henry Breasted to serve as field director of the Oriental Institute’s Iraq expedition, working on archaeological excavations in the Diyala River Basin and the Assyrian city of Dur-Sharrukin (now Khorsabad), a position he held to 1937. In 1931 he became a correspondent of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, which he held until his resignation in 1944; he would become a member in 1950. Alongside these roles, in 1932 he was appointed Research Professor in Oriental Archaeology at the Oriental Institute, University of Chicago, and chairman of the Department of Oriental Languages and Literatures. In 1933 he was awarded the role of Extraordinary Professor in History and Archaeology of the Ancient Near East at the University of Amsterdam, which he held until 1938. The Frankforts consequently split their time between the USA and Europe, teaching in the USA in the winter months, while summers were spent working on research and publications in Europe, and maintaining their main home in Kimmeridge, Dorset, England. In London, the Frankforts lived within the centre of the British avant-garde in Hampstead, north London (also home to many émigrés), socialising with artists such as Barbara Hepworth and Ben Nicholson. Frankfort was regularly invited to lecture at universities across the USA, including acting as Visiting Professor for the Pattern Foundation Lectures at Indiana University in 1948-49. While living in the USA, Frankfort took a class to visit a Picasso exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago to compare aspects of modern art with ancient. In 1949 he returned to London to become Director of the Warburg Institute and Professor of the History of Preclassical Antiquity at the University of London. While working at the Warburg, in 1952 he met and married his second wife, the British art historian of Spanish art, Enriqueta Harris (1910-2006).
During his lifetime, Henri Frankfort was the recipient of numerous honours and memberships, including Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, the Society of Antiquities, and of the British Academy, as well as Member of the American Oriental Society, American Philosophical Society, and of the Egypt Exploration Society. He published extensively on the philosophy, archaeology, and history of ancient Egypt and the Near-East. Over his lifetime he published more than a dozen books and monographs and contributed to many more, as well as authoring numerous articles and book reviews for academic journals. His first book Studies in Early Pottery of the Near East was published by the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland in 1924. Works included outcomes of his archaeological excavations in Iraq such as Cylinder Seals: A Documentary Essay on the Art and Religion of the Ancient Near East (1939). His works on ancient religion of Egypt, Mesopotamia and the Near-East continue to be influential, including Ancient Egyptian Religion: An Interpretation (1948); Kingship and the Gods (1948), and The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man (1946), later reissued as Before Philosophy (1963), with contributions from his colleagues in Chicago and his wife Henriette. While working at the Warburg, in 1952 he met and married his second wife, the British art historian of Spanish art, Enriqueta Harris (1910-2006). Henri Frankfort died in London, England on 16 July 1957, aged 57.
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Henri Frankfort]
Publications related to [Henri Frankfort] in the Ben Uri Library