Oleg Grabar (1929–2011)

Oleg Grabar's research had a profound and far-reaching influence on the study of Islamic art and architecture. His extensive archaeological expeditions and research trips cover the vast expanse of the Islamic world in Africa, the Middle East, and Muslim Asia. With his knowledge of Arabic texts, Dr. Grabar explored in highly original ways the semiotic relations between art and literature. His publications cover numismatics, epigraphy, archaeology, manuscript illumination, calligraphy and architecture; they include Epic Images and Contemporary History: The Illustrations of the Great Mongol Shahnama (1982); The Mediation of Ornament (1992); Late Antiquity: A Guide to the Post-Classical World (with Glen Bowersock and Peter Brown, 1999); The Art and Architecture of Islam 650-1250 (with Richard Ettinghausen and Marilyn Jenkins-Madina, 2001); Mostly Miniatures (2002); Islamic Art: The Decorated Page from the 8th to the 17th Century (2009), and (edited with B. Kedar) Where Heaven and Earth Meet (2009). Dr. Grabar received his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1955 and taught at the University of Michigan from 1954-69 before moving to Harvard University, becoming Aga Khan Professor of Islamic Art and Architecture in 1980. In 1990 he joined the Institute for Advanced Study, becoming Professor Emeritus in 1998. He was a member of the Medieval Academy of America, the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and the British Academy. Dr. Grabar's breadth, dynamic presence, remarkable productivity and technical competence as an excavator made him one of the leading Islamic art historians in the world. Oleg Grabar died on January 8, 2011, at the age of 81, at his home in Princeton, New Jersey.