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Suzanne Miers
The paintings I have lent to the Museum were collected in Ethiopia in the early 1930s by Francis Edwin (Frank) de Halpert. He was born in Berne, Switzerland, in 1883. His father, an aristocrat of Polish extraction, was then serving in the Austro-Hungarian diplomatic service. He later became British, and Frank de Halpert was educated at Harrow School. In 1906 he entered the Egyptian Civil Service. He served in the Imperial Egyptian Camel Corps during the First World War and in 1917 became Governor of the Western Desert. He was awarded the Order of the Nile.
In 1930 de Halpert was appointed Advisor to the Ethiopian Ministry of the Interior by the Emperor Haile Selassie I, with the task of modernizing the government. Slavery was still legal and in response to pressure from Britain, the Emperor established a Slavery Department in 1932 with de Halpert as Advisor. Despairing of achieving results, he resigned in December 1933 and from April 1934 to October 1935 he traveled around Ethiopia. On the outbreak of the Italo-Ethiopian war, he joined the British Red Cross, and served with the Ethiopian army. He played a distinguished role saving lives in the orgy of looting and murder that preceded the fall of Addis Ababa. On his return to Britain he became Honorary Librarian of the Royal Central Asian Society. During the Second World War he worked in the Government Censorship Office. In 1941 he helped Margery Perham prepare her book, The Government of Ethiopia. He died in London in 1971. He was much respected and was remembered as a quiet, reserved, kindly man with perfect manners. His papers are in Rhodes House, Oxford, and the Hampshire County Record Office in Winchester.
I bought the paintings from his nephew, Commander Michael de Halpert, who was anxious that they be properly preserved. They were of great interest to me as an historian of Africa and they are on loan to Michigan State University Museum so that they may be properly cared for, displayed, and used for teaching.
Collector / Donor Statements
Virginia Artis . Nancy and George Axinn . Marsha MacDowell and Kurt Dewhurst . James Ellison . Robert Glew . Suzanne Miers . Simon Ottenberg . Barbara Porter-Spaulding . Raymond Silverman . Neal Sobania . Robert Zigler
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