In the winter of 2011, a dazzling collection of Central Asian ikat textiles donated by Murad M. Megalli, SEAS BS’80, SEAS MS ’83 was prominently exhibited at The Textile Museum, then still in its previous location before the museum’s 2015 reopening at GW. In the midst of the exhibition’s run, the textile community received the devastating news that the GW alumnus had been killed in an airplane crash while on a business trip in northern Iraq. Just weeks before, he had joined The Textile Museum Board of Trustees, and had received The Textile Museum Award of Distinction for his service in fulfillment of the museum’s mission.
In addition to the Central Asian ikat collection Megalli had donated to The Textile Museum in 2005, he had also assembled an impressive collection of Anatolian kilims – large textiles woven by Turkey’s nomadic communities to adorn tents and camel caravans. As a lasting legacy to The Textile Museum, Megalli bequeathed the kilim collection and generously established the Megalli Family Endowment to promote research, collections, educational programs, and publications of Uzbek and Central Asian ikats and Anatolian kilims.
The museum will honor Megalli’s legacy with an exhibition of selections from the Anatolian kilim collection on view at the George Washington University Museum and The Textile Museum from September 1 to December 23.
“Murad’s estate designated The Textile Museum as a steward of his collection and provided the endowment necessary for the scholarly research and publication that such aesthetic treasures deserve,” says John Wetenhall, director of The George Washington University Museum and The Textile Museum.
A portion of Megalli’s collection is also in the care of the Vehbi Koç Foundation in Istanbul, Turkey, an arrangement that may “promise collaborative scholarship and programming in the future,” says Wetenhall. The Koç Foundation has other links to GW’s alumni community: its former board member the late Mustafa V. Koç, BBA’84 was one of the most prominent international graduates of GW School of Business.
The exhibition at GW this fall, A Nomad’s Art: Kilims of Anatolia, is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue that makes new contributions to scholarship on Anatolia’s artistic heritage. The Textile Museum previously published Megalli’s ikat collection in the 2010 book Colors of the Oasis: Central Asian Ikats that accompanied the museum’s 2010-11 exhibition of the same name. That exhibition later traveled to the Seattle Asian Art Museum and most recently to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
Megalli was first introduced to the world of textiles when he moved to Istanbul in 1987 and developed a close friendship with Josephine Powell—the renowned ethnographer, photographer, and chronicler of nomadic life who, until her death in 2007, worked tirelessly to document the cultural and weaving traditions of Anatolia.
In the foreword to A Nomad’s Art: Kilims of Anatolia catalogue, Megalli’s son Samy shared his memories of his father’s love for textiles.
“The world of textiles was one that wove together my father’s many passions in a way that really nothing else could, to create a colorful mosaic not unlike the Anatolian kilims in his collection,” says Samy. “The Textile Museum has been a natural home for the Megalli Collection, with tireless work to preserve and make available to the world this collection of Anatolian kilims.”
Born in Egypt, Megalli moved to the United States when he was sixteen. He graduated from the School of Engineering and Applied Science with degrees in hydraulic engineering, and subsequently earned a MBA from Yale University. He had a successful career in investment banking with JPMorgan Chase, and served as CEO of its operations in the Middle East, North Africa, Turkey, and Central Asia.
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