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Jon Thomson,Oriental Carpet Scholar, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (retired)
Weaving among the Turkmen was a memory-based skill. As with language and
folk music, it can be demonstrated that patterns transmitted from person to
person by memory can remain relatively stable throughout many centuries.
Like language also, the vocabulary of ornament is enriched from time to
time with loan motifs, which undergo a slow transformation. This
presentation examines several Turkmen motifs in detail. It will discuss
their various sources, the transformations they have undergone, and in some
cases their remarkable antiquity. It also mentions some of the pitfalls in
this kind of art historical enquiry.
Dr. Jon Thompson is one of the foremost scholars in the field of Oriental
carpets. He co-curated an exhibition which was highly influential in the
recognition and appreciation of Turkmen rugs, and textiles, and generated
collecting interests in this area that still exist today. He held the
position of May Beattie Fellow in Carpet Studies at the Ashmolean Museum of
Art and Archaeology and the Khalili Research Centre, at the University of
Oxford in the UK, until his recent retirement.
In addition to creating a database of images, his work also involved
teaching courses on carpets and textiles of the Islamic world at Oxford
University and at the British Museum.
Dr. Thompson continues to teach in London at the School of Oriental
and African Studies (SOAS) and at the Victoria & Albert Museum. In 2008
Thompson was the guest curator of an exhibition celebrating the 75th
anniversary of the New York-based Hajji Baba Club.
The exhibition was on view at the New York Historical Society and at
The Textile Museum on October 18, 2008, and was accompanied by a beautifully
illustrated catalogue, Timbuktu to
Tibet; Exotic Rugs and Textiles from New York Collectors, also written
by Dr. Thompson. Dr, Thompson was
chosen as the 2008 recipient of the Textile Museum’s George Hewitt Myers
Award, the highest honor given in the field of textile arts, and recognizes
his lifetime achievement and exceptional contributions to the study and
understanding of the textile arts
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