Knowing that something existed was not enough for Ivan Karp.
He asked how it existed, he wondered why, he examined, he studied and then he explained it – in laymen’s terms. These practices, and more, made him an extraordinary anthropologist, friends, family and colleagues say.
“He contributed to the global good and the global understanding of the University and how it connects, in this case, with museums and society, and the understanding an explanation of culture,” said Dr. Lisa Tedesco, dean of the James T. Laney school of graduate studies at Emory University.
Dr. Karp came to Atlanta in the early 1990s to be the National Endowment for the Humanities Professor in the Graduate Institute of the Liberal Arts at Emory University. Prior to his work at Emory, he was a research curator of African Ethnology and Art at the Smithsonian Institution and he served as Curator of Research in Anthropology and African Cultures at the National Museum of Natural History, which is part of the Smithsonian. Dr. Karp also taught at Colgate, Indiana, and Catholic universities, during his academic career.
Dr. Karp and his wife, Dr. Corinne Kratz, who is also on faculty at Emory, had recently moved to Tesuque, N.M., in preparation for their retirement. They were still working with the University when Dr. Karp became ill. Ivan Karp, 68, died Sept. 17 at Kindred Hospital Albuquerque, from complications of septic shock, Dr. Kratz said. Memorial events have been planned in Atlanta; Washington D.C.; Cape Town, South Africa; Rome and several other locations across the globe. French Funerals and Cremations, in Albuquerque, N.M., was in charge of arrangements.
Gordon Jones, senior military historian at the Atlanta History Center, said Dr. Karp had the ability to speak with authority on a number of subjects, which made conversations with him enjoyable.
“He was the sort of guy who would ask you about your work, and you’d have no answer,” said Mr. Jones. “Then a couple of days later, you’d say, ‘Oh, now I see what he’s asking.’ He pushed you to think harder about what you were doing. He had a wide intellectual pocket.”
Dr. Johnnetta Betsch Cole, director of the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, said Dr. Karp had “a very special duality.”
“He could appear very gruff,” said Dr. Cole, a former Spelman College president. “But he really had a beautiful heart and soul.”
Dr. Karp’s contribution to the museum world was more than just identifying and cataloging important cultural pieces, she said.
“Ivan had more than ‘the eye’ to identify a masterpiece… he had the heart,” she said. “He understood the importance of placing individual material expressions where they belong.”
Dr. Cole said Dr. Karp’s death is mourned “across the face of the Smithsonian.”
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