Professor Mehmet Aga-Oglu was at the heart of two landmark events at the university.
When he joined the faculty in 1933, the Turkish-born scholar became the first professor of Islamic art at an American university.
Aga-Oglu arrived at U-M with an impressive resume. He studied history, philosophy and the languages of various Islamic countries at the University of Moscow, where he earned a doctorate in 1916. A decade later, he received a second doctorate, in Turkish architecture, from the University of Vienna. He worked as a curator at the University of Istanbul before moving to the United States in 1929 to establish a department in Near Eastern art at the Detroit Institute of Arts.
Aga-Oglu established a research seminary for upper-level students and, less than a year after joining U-M, founded the first academic journal to focus on art and architecture from Islamic nations. Ars Islamica debuted in the spring of 1934, the depth of the Depression, with Aga-Oglu serving as editor in chief. Published jointly by U-M and the DIA, the journal’s mission was to provide a platform for discussing “various problems concerning the historical and artistic development of the arts and crafts in Islamic countries.”
“Ars Islamica appears at a time of universal economic disorder, which affects severely our material and spiritual existence, but it hopes in spite of all difficulties to be of some service to contemporary culture by enlarging knowledge in the field of Islamic Art,” Aga-Oglu wrote. “Its success in this responsible work depends wholly on the cooperation of scholars and on the support of learned institutions and the art-loving public.”
The journal continued until 1951, when it evolved into Ars Orientalis, which the University continues to publish jointly with the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art.
Aga-Oglu also played a key role in working with the governments of Egypt, Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Persia (today Iran) to establish scholarships in the fine arts for U-M undergraduates. Aga-Oglu died of cancer in 1949 at age 52.
“Mehmet Aga-Oglu was an inspiring teacher and an excellent museum man,” said Adele Coulin Weibel, a fellow DIA curator. “His wide knowledge of language —Turkish, Persian and Arabic, English, German, Russian, French, Latin, and Greek—made him an insatiable reader and a conversationalist of great charm. And so his memory will remain alive with his students and friends as that of a man unique in many aspects.”
