One of the country’s leading Islamic art historians Professor Robert Hillenbrand will be giving this year’s Slade lectures, organised by the Department of the History of Art at the University of Cambridge.

Every year since 1962 the Department of History of Art has given the honorary post of Slade Professor of Fine Art to a leading academic and this year they chose Professor Robert Hillenbrand of the University of Edinburgh.

Professor Hillenbrand is also an alumnus of Cambridge University, where he read English Literature at Trinity College. After completing his studies he began teaching at the Department of Fine Art at the University of Edinburgh in 1971 and was awarded the chair of Islamic Art in 1989.

Through his work he has travelled all over the world and held visiting professorships at leading universities worldwide including Princeton, University of California and Gröningen. He was also the Distinguished Visiting Professor at the American University in Cairo in 2004.

Professor Hillenbrand has written a large number of books as well as co-editing and editing a number of others during his career. His book on Islamic Architecture Form, Function and Meaning has become the standard work in English. He has also published around 140 articles on every aspect of Islamic art and architecture.

In 2006 he was appointed the Director of the newly-established Centre for the Advanced Study of the Arab world; this comprises a number of Universities including Edinburgh, Manchester and Durham. The main role of the centre is to increase outreach to the public in relation to the Arabic world.

One of the key responsibilities of the Slade Professor is to present the Slade lecture series. The lecture series this year is entitled Early Islamic art between east and west, 650-750 AD and is set to cover a wide range of topics.

The lectures are held on Thursdays at 5pm in Mill Lane Lecture Room 3, with the first lecture taking place on Friday 16 October, entitled How Islamic art adapted the Mediterranean heritage.
 

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