Helen Ibbitson Jessup is an independent scholar specializing in the art and architecture of Southeast Asia, particularly Cambodia and Indonesia. She has curated several exhibitions, including Sculpture of Angkor and Ancient Cambodia, Millennium of Glory for the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC (1997), and Court Arts of Indonesia for the Asia Society and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution (1990) and was the editor and author of the accompanying catalogues. In addition she wrote Art and Architecture of Cambodia for the World of Art series (2004), Masterpieces of the National Museum of Cambodia (2006), Temples of Cambodia, the Heart of Angkor (2012) and is currently writing Angkor and Beyond about the outlying temples of Cambodia.
Australian-born Jessup’s BA is from Melbourne University; her MA and PhD are from the Courtauld Institute of Art, London University. She has taught at Georgetown University (Washington, DC), the Australian National University (Canberra) and Chulalongkorn University (Bangkok) and is currently an Associate Fellow of Saybrook College, Yale University. She has lectured in the United States, Britain, The Netherlands, Thailand, Indonesia, France and Australia. Jessup’s studies have also included Dutch colonial architecture and Australian art and literature.
She is the founding President of Friends of Khmer Culture and also serves on the boards of The United States-Indonesia Society and the American Friends of the National Gallery of Australia. She can be reached via email.