Ernst Cohn-Wiener

Ernst Cohn-Wiener

Ernst Cohn-Wiener (1882–1941) was a German historian of Islamic art. Born in the city of Tilsit, he studied the history of art, archaeology, and philosophy in Berlin and Heidelberg from 1902 to 1906. He received his PhD from Heidelberg in 1907. In the 1920s his interest turned to Islamic art history and he resolved to explore the monuments of Central Asia, a little-known field at the time. After expeditions in 1924 and 1925, he published Turan: Islamische Baukunst in Mittelasien. In 1933 Cohn-Wiener lost his position due to the antisemitic policies of the Nazis and he emigrated with his wife to India where he was employed by the Maharaja of Baroda. In 1939 emigrated to the USA where he died