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Kurt Erdmann
Kurt Erdmann (9 September 1901 in Hamburg – 30 September 1964 in Berlin) was a German art historian who specialised in Sasanian and Islamic art of Iran, Turkey and Egypt. He is best known for his scientific work on the history of the Oriental rug, which he established as a subspeciality within his discipline. He also influenced the study of Islamic architecture in Turkey. From 1958 to 1964, Erdmann served as the director of the Museum of Islamic Art, Berlin. He was one of the protagonists of the Berlin School of Islamic Art History.
Erdmann was born in Hamburg as the elder of two children of Friedrich, a German overseas merchant during the peak period of New Imperialism who died of malaria in British Sierra Leone in 1904, and Alma née Sörensen, a Dane.
After graduating from a Hamburg Realgymnasium in 1919, Erdmann studied German literature at the University of Hamburg (1920/21) and the University of Tübingen (1921), then shifted to European art history at Marburg University (1922/23). With the onset of the 1923 economic crisis, he turned to work in antiquities trade for Adolf Gottschewski, the subsequent co-director of the Dr. Gottschewski – Dr. Schäffer art gallery in Berlin. He resumed his studies in art history at Hamburg in 1925 and completed his PhD thesis on Der architektonische Bogen als Kunstform under the supervision of Erwin Panofsky there in 1927. Although he came to know Aby Warburg and maintained a correspondence with Warburg's successor Fritz Saxl, he rejected the iconological approach of the Warburg School, to which his supervisor belonged, regarding it as "one-sided".
In July 1927, he joined the Museum of Islamic Art in Berlin (then part of the Emperor Frederick Museum), initially as an unpaid volunteer. He developed a life-long interest in oriental carpets while preparing the bibliography and plate descriptions for the museum director Friedrich Sarre's second volume of Alt-orientalische Teppiche, which appeared in 1928, and began to study Sasanian art through contact with Sarre's work as well. He became involved in the Berlin carpet trade alongside the museum's senior carpet expert Ernst Kühnel by writing auction catalogues. In 1929, he received the paid position of contract negotiator at the museum, but continued to supplement his income from antiquities trade (he catalogued the Jakob Goldschmidt collection during 1927–1930) and writing book reviews. In 1932, he was permanently hired by the museum's new director Ernst Kühnel and along with Richard Ettinghausen helped set up the new galleries of the Pergamon Museum to which the Islamic department was transferred in that year. Among his colleagues there was Katharina Otto-Dorn. After Adolf Hitler's rise to power in 1933, Erdmann was receptive to National Socialist ideas, left the Protestant Church and joined some organisations linked to the Nazi Party. He was promoted to scientific assistant in 1934, published a best-selling album of European paintings, and lectured at the Lessing High School in Berlin in 1936. In 1935–36, he surveyed the medieval and early modern Middle Eastern art holdings across Germany. He travelled across Europe (including to Leningrad, Moscow and Warsaw in 1936) and to Egypt during the 1930s. He made a single study visit to Istanbul in the winter of 1937/1938, examining the carpet collections extensively and meeting with the Turkish archaeologist Halil Edhem Eldem. He oversaw the display of the Islamic collections during the 6th International Congress of Archaeology in Berlin in April 1939.
Erdmann's academic career began with a visiting professorship at the Egyptian University in Cairo in 1938. Although the museum was closed after the German invasion of Poland in September 1939, he remained employed there during World War II and pursued writing. In 1941, he worked on cataloguing Max von Oppenheim's collection. In 1942, he completed a survey of the development of the knotted-pile carpet titled Die Formenwelt des Orientteppichs that remained unpublished. He underwent interpreter training as part of a special Wehrmacht unit (Dolmetscherkompanie) near Berlin in the same year, and worked on an unknown project there. From the summer term of 1943, he lectured in Iranian archaeology at the Friedrich Wilhelm University of Berlin. He was called up to his interpreters' unit in the Wehrmacht in the autumn of 1944, while employed as a curator at the Museum of Islamic Art and shortly after being recommended for the position of Honorarprofessor. He was released from American captivity for residence in Hamburg in the British occupation zone, where he lectured at the university from 1946 and was appointed Honorarprofessor of Islamic art and Iranian archaeology in 1948. He held a visiting professorship at the University of Bonn from 1949.
Erdmann replaced Ernst Diez as the chair of Turkish and Islamic art history at Istanbul University in January 1951. He also lectured on pre-Islamic Turkish art and Turkish architecture at the State Academy of the Fine Arts. He completed 52 research trips across Anatolia, initially in the company of his second wife Hanna née Meurer (who had learned Turkish and prepared drawings), and from 1953 to 1958 jointly with his academic assistant and translator Oktay Aslanapa, the Ottomanist Franz Taeschner, and his own Turkish students, among them Nurhan Atasoy and the architect Cengiz Bektaş. He used the fieldwork to explore the Islamic architectural legacy of Anatolia in all its variety, breaking with the selective approach of his predecessors, and his methods had a significant influence on the young generation of Turkish art historians. In the summer of 1956, he spent three months researching art collections in the United States. He also travelled to Iran in 1957 and to Cairo, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan in 1958.
From October 1958 until his death in 1964, Erdmann was head of the Museum of Islamic Art, a department of the Berlin State Museums. He lectured at the University of Hamburg at the invitation of Bertold Spuler and Wolfgang Schöne, and was a full member of the German Archaeological Institute. He oversaw an expansion of the Islamic collections through the opening of the Dahlem complex.
Kurt Erdmann followed in the footsteps of Wilhelm von Bode, Friedrich Sarre and Ernst Kühnel as the fourth director of the Museum of Islamic Art in Berlin and a leading representative of the Berlin School of Islamic Art History. The school developed the "terminus ante quem" dating method based on reproductions of Oriental carpets in Renaissance painting.
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Kurt Erdmann
Kurt Erdmann (9 September 1901 in Hamburg – 30 September 1964 in Berlin) was a German art historian who specialised in Sasanian and Islamic art of Iran, Turkey and Egypt. He is best known for his scientific work on the history of the Oriental rug, which he established as a subspeciality within his discipline. He also influenced the study of Islamic architecture in Turkey. From 1958 to 1964, Erdmann served as the director of the Museum of Islamic Art, Berlin. He was one of the protagonists of the Berlin School of Islamic Art History.
Erdmann was born in Hamburg as the elder of two children of Friedrich, a German overseas merchant during the peak period of New Imperialism who died of malaria in British Sierra Leone in 1904, and Alma née Sörensen, a Dane.
After graduating from a Hamburg Realgymnasium in 1919, Erdmann studied German literature at the University of Hamburg (1920/21) and the University of Tübingen (1921), then shifted to European art history at Marburg University (1922/23). With the onset of the 1923 economic crisis, he turned to work in antiquities trade for Adolf Gottschewski, the subsequent co-director of the Dr. Gottschewski – Dr. Schäffer art gallery in Berlin. He resumed his studies in art history at Hamburg in 1925 and completed his PhD thesis on Der architektonische Bogen als Kunstform under the supervision of Erwin Panofsky there in 1927. Although he came to know Aby Warburg and maintained a correspondence with Warburg's successor Fritz Saxl, he rejected the iconological approach of the Warburg School, to which his supervisor belonged, regarding it as "one-sided".
In July 1927, he joined the Museum of Islamic Art in Berlin (then part of the Emperor Frederick Museum), initially as an unpaid volunteer. He developed a life-long interest in oriental carpets while preparing the bibliography and plate descriptions for the museum director Friedrich Sarre's second volume of Alt-orientalische Teppiche, which appeared in 1928, and began to study Sasanian art through contact with Sarre's work as well. He became involved in the Berlin carpet trade alongside the museum's senior carpet expert Ernst Kühnel by writing auction catalogues. In 1929, he received the paid position of contract negotiator at the museum, but continued to supplement his income from antiquities trade (he catalogued the Jakob Goldschmidt collection during 1927–1930) and writing book reviews. In 1932, he was permanently hired by the museum's new director Ernst Kühnel and along with Richard Ettinghausen helped set up the new galleries of the Pergamon Museum to which the Islamic department was transferred in that year. Among his colleagues there was Katharina Otto-Dorn. After Adolf Hitler's rise to power in 1933, Erdmann was receptive to National Socialist ideas, left the Protestant Church and joined some organisations linked to the Nazi Party. He was promoted to scientific assistant in 1934, published a best-selling album of European paintings, and lectured at the Lessing High School in Berlin in 1936. In 1935–36, he surveyed the medieval and early modern Middle Eastern art holdings across Germany. He travelled across Europe (including to Leningrad, Moscow and Warsaw in 1936) and to Egypt during the 1930s. He made a single study visit to Istanbul in the winter of 1937/1938, examining the carpet collections extensively and meeting with the Turkish archaeologist Halil Edhem Eldem. He oversaw the display of the Islamic collections during the 6th International Congress of Archaeology in Berlin in April 1939.
Erdmann's academic career began with a visiting professorship at the Egyptian University in Cairo in 1938. Although the museum was closed after the German invasion of Poland in September 1939, he remained employed there during World War II and pursued writing. In 1941, he worked on cataloguing Max von Oppenheim's collection. In 1942, he completed a survey of the development of the knotted-pile carpet titled Die Formenwelt des Orientteppichs that remained unpublished. He underwent interpreter training as part of a special Wehrmacht unit (Dolmetscherkompanie) near Berlin in the same year, and worked on an unknown project there. From the summer term of 1943, he lectured in Iranian archaeology at the Friedrich Wilhelm University of Berlin. He was called up to his interpreters' unit in the Wehrmacht in the autumn of 1944, while employed as a curator at the Museum of Islamic Art and shortly after being recommended for the position of Honorarprofessor. He was released from American captivity for residence in Hamburg in the British occupation zone, where he lectured at the university from 1946 and was appointed Honorarprofessor of Islamic art and Iranian archaeology in 1948. He held a visiting professorship at the University of Bonn from 1949.
Erdmann replaced Ernst Diez as the chair of Turkish and Islamic art history at Istanbul University in January 1951. He also lectured on pre-Islamic Turkish art and Turkish architecture at the State Academy of the Fine Arts. He completed 52 research trips across Anatolia, initially in the company of his second wife Hanna née Meurer (who had learned Turkish and prepared drawings), and from 1953 to 1958 jointly with his academic assistant and translator Oktay Aslanapa, the Ottomanist Franz Taeschner, and his own Turkish students, among them Nurhan Atasoy and the architect Cengiz Bektaş. He used the fieldwork to explore the Islamic architectural legacy of Anatolia in all its variety, breaking with the selective approach of his predecessors, and his methods had a significant influence on the young generation of Turkish art historians. In the summer of 1956, he spent three months researching art collections in the United States. He also travelled to Iran in 1957 and to Cairo, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan in 1958.
From October 1958 until his death in 1964, Erdmann was head of the Museum of Islamic Art, a department of the Berlin State Museums. He lectured at the University of Hamburg at the invitation of Bertold Spuler and Wolfgang Schöne, and was a full member of the German Archaeological Institute. He oversaw an expansion of the Islamic collections through the opening of the Dahlem complex.
Kurt Erdmann followed in the footsteps of Wilhelm von Bode, Friedrich Sarre and Ernst Kühnel as the fourth director of the Museum of Islamic Art in Berlin and a leading representative of the Berlin School of Islamic Art History. The school developed the "terminus ante quem" dating method based on reproductions of Oriental carpets in Renaissance painting.