Nasser Khalili

Sir Nasser David Khalili (, born 18 December 1945) is a British-Iranian scholar, collector, and philanthropist based in London. Born in Iran and educated at Queens College, City University of New York and the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, he is now a British citizen. Khalili has assembled eight art collections — the Khalili Collections — each considered among the most important in its field. These collections total 35,000 art works and include the largest private collection of Islamic art and a collection of Japanese art rivalling that of the Japanese imperial family. He has spent tens of millions of pounds on conserving, researching, and documenting the collections, publishing more than seventy volumes of catalogues and research so far. Exhibitions drawn from the collections have appeared in institutions around the world.
He first started to collect art in New York during the 1970s, later investing in property in the United Kingdom during the 1980s. Since then his wealth has grown substantially, which he stated in an interview was due to "dealing in art, commodities and real estate". Khalili is known for the purchase and renovation of a number of large properties in London.
Through his philanthropic organisation, the Khalili Foundation, he supports a range of activities to promote mutual understanding and dialogue between Abrahamic religions. His donations funded the creation of a research centre in Islamic art at the University of Oxford as well as the first university chair in the subject, at the School of Oriental and African Studies. He also supports the creation and distribution of educational materials and has written and distributed a history of Islamic art and architecture.
Khalili is a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador and has taken part in United Nations and UNESCO events on the theme of peace between cultures. His work for intercultural dialogue and peace has been recognised with honorary degrees from five universities and awards from the French National Assembly and the High Sheriff of Greater London. He is the recipient of the Legion of Honour, presented by French President François Hollande. He is also a trustee of the City of Jerusalem and has received knighthoods from two Popes. He received a knighthood in the 2020 Queen's Birthday Honours "for services to interfaith relations and charity".
When asked about his collections, Khalili stated that he "found things that belonged to a great heritage that was just sitting there unnoticed. [...] They were displaced from history and deserved to be preserved and recognised".
Early life and education.
Khalili was born in 1945 in the city of Isfahan, Iran, the fourth of five children, to a Jewish family of art dealers and traders of artefacts. They moved to Tehran when he was a few months old. By the age of eight, he was accompanying his father on buying trips, acquiring Persian lacquers and other Islamic art works. He studied in Tehran and, at age 14, wrote a book profiling more than two hundred geniuses. The book was prompted by an argument with one of his teachers. After the book's publication, Khalili featured on television discussing his book and also wrote columns in newspapers.
Khalili completed his national service in Iran as a medic in the Iranian Army, before leaving Iran in 1967 for the United States with $750, the proceeds from his book. He studied computer science and earned a BA degree in the subject at Queens College, City University of New York, graduating in 1974. He later received a PhD degree in Islamic art in 1988 from the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, with a thesis on Islamic lacquerware.
Business and collecting career.
Khalili started his business career trading in art before moving into property development and commodities. He began collecting art in New York City in the 1970s, keeping the best pieces for his own collection. In the mid 1970s he moved to London and began to frequent its auction houses, establishing his own gallery in Mayfair between 1978 and 1980. Khalili initially traded in Persian lacquerware, later writing his doctoral thesis on the subject. In 1978, the price of Islamic art fell substantially. The Iranian Revolution brought more items onto the market as rich families sold their art and during the subsequent Iran-Iraq War there was little interest in collecting art in that region. Khalili took the opportunity to expand his collection, acquiring works that would be valued much more highly with the later growth of international interest in Islamic art.
People close to Khalili stated that he invested wisely and often discreetly, buying items that later appreciated to one hundred times the price he paid. Khalili's dealership was based in Mayfair's Clifford Street in the 1980s. When asked directly how he had gathered his wealth during the 1970s and 1980s, Khalili stated it was from sugar and coffee trading, the options market, property investments and works of art. In a 2010 interview Khalili said that his collecting in the mid 1980s was funded by his dealings in venture capital, having profited from shares in a company that developed technology to treat tumours, and that he made $15 million from the sale of a company that manufactured indigestion pills in 1987. In 1992 he described his wealth as deriving from "dealing in art, commodities and real estate".
In the mid-1980s, the scale of Khalili's collection greatly expanded. He sought out the rarest items and paid record prices at auction. In the early 1990s, he began to publish a catalogue of his Islamic art collection, commissioning numerous scholars of Islam. Suspicions in the art industry were that Khalili was assembling the collection on behalf of a rich investor. Eventually he revealed that he was collecting on behalf of his own family trust. During the same period, Khalili was an art advisor to Hassanal Bolkiah, the Sultan of Brunei. He wrote a catalogue of the Sultan's art works that were on display in the Brunei Museum.
In 1992, Khalili offered to lend his Islamic art collection to the British government for a period of 15 years and on condition it would be publicly displayed in a "museum building in central London". He suggested that the museum would be known as the Nasser D. Khalili Museum, with the running costs of the museum and insurance to be publicly funded. The offer was made with the potential for turning the donation into a gift at the expiration of the 15-year period. The Conservative politician Lord Young of Graffham and the public relations executive Lord Bell lobbied the government to accept Khalili's offer. Many expressed an interest in the proposal, including Prince Charles.
In 2007 Khalili's wealth was estimated at £5.8 billion by the "Sunday Times Rich List", but he did not appear in subsequent editions of the list. "Forbes" listed him as a billionaire from 2005 onwards, estimating his wealth at $1.3 billion in 2007 and 2008, until dropping him from the list in 2014. In 2008 "The Art Newspaper" wrote that "a £1 billion valuation is believed more likely" than previously claimed higher amounts. Khalili has claimed to have spent $650 million on art.
Khalili Collections.
Khalili has assembled eight art collections, collectively known as the Khalili Collections. They include Islamic art dating from 700 to 2000; Hajj and the Arts of Pilgrimage from 700 to 2000; Aramaic Documents from 353 BC to 324 BC; Japanese Art of the Meiji Period from 1868 to 1912; Japanese Kimono from 1700 to 2000; Swedish Textiles from 1700 to 1900; Spanish Damascened Metalwork from 1850 to 1900 and Enamels of the World from 1700 to 2000. Together, the eight collections contain 35,000 works.
The Khalili Collection of Islamic Art has holdings of more than 28,000 objects documenting arts from Islamic lands over a period of 1,400 years. It was described in 1998 as "one of the largest and most representative collections of Quranic manuscripts in the world" and is the largest and most comprehensive private collection. It includes 500 manuscripts of the Qur'an, rare and illustrated manuscripts, album paintings, bookbindings, lacquer, ceramics, glass and rock crystal, metalwork, scientific instruments, arms and armour, jewellery, carpets and textiles, coins and architectural elements. Among the illustrated manuscripts is one of the earliest known exemplars of the "Jami' al-tawarikh" ("Compendium of Chronicles"), dated 1314. The collection was the basis in 2008 for the first comprehensive exhibition of Islamic art to be staged in the Middle East, at the Emirates Palace in Abu Dhabi. This was also the largest exhibition of Islamic art held anywhere up to that date. Due to its large number of manuscripts, the collection has been used by researchers to study Islamic calligraphy. The official catalogue now runs to 27 books with a further 20 planned.
The Hajj and the Arts of Pilgrimage collection relates to Hajj and the arts associated with it. The works in the collection range from the Umayyad period to the 21st century. The collection aims to represent an overview of the subject, illustrating various religious and artistic aspects of the pilgrimages to various holy cities. The collection contains approximately 3,000 objects, including over 250 textiles and many other objects relating to Mecca and Medina. The combined collection is the second largest collection of its kind, only exceeded by that of the Topkapı Palace museum.
The Khalili Collection of Aramaic Documents includes 48 Aramaic documents from Ancient Bactria. The majority of the collection is made up of part letters and accounts connected with the court of the Satrap (local ruler) of Bactria. Together these letters and accounts make up the first discovered correspondence of the administration of Bactria and Sogdiana. The documents are written in Official Aramaic and were likely from the historical city of Balkh. They are dated to a period of less than 30 years, from 353 BC to 324 BC. The newest of the documents was written during Alexander the Great's early reign in the region. The collection of letters and documents is significant for the linguistic study of the Official Aramaic language and of daily life in the Achaemenid empire.
The Japanese Art of the Meiji period collection is comparable only to the collection of the Japanese Imperial family in terms of size and quality. It comprises over 1,400 pieces, including metalwork, enamels, lacquerwork, ceramics and textiles. The pieces are from the period of Emperor Meiji's rule from 1868 to 1912. During this period, Imperial patronage, government sponsorship, promotion to new audiences, and Western technology combined to foster an era of innovation in which Japanese artists reached new levels of technical sophistication. The collection includes works by artists of the Imperial court that were exhibited at the Great Exhibitions of the late 19th century. Rather than covering the whole range of Meiji-era decorative art, Khalili has focused on objects of the highest technical and artistic quality. Included is a trio of cloisonné enamelled vases which have become known as the Khalili Imperial Garniture. Created for exhibition in Chicago in 1893 and personally approved by the Emperor Meiji, the three vases were described at the time as "the largest examples of cloisonné enamel ever made". The garniture was subsequently split, and one vase considered "lost", until Khalili reunited all three in 2019. The collection has been used in researching Japonisme: how the availability of Japanese art in Europe during the late 19th and early 20th century influenced European art, especially Vincent van Gogh and the impressionists.
Khalili's second Japanese-based collection is the Khalili Collection of Kimono. This covers three hundred years of the Japanese textile industry and contains over 450 garments. The garments have been worn to demonstrate gender, age, status and wealth throughout Japan's history. The collection reveals a variety in kimono designs, illustrating how the design and use of kimono have changed over the centuries. The collection mainly represents four periods, the Edo period (1603-1868), the Meiji period (1868-1912), Taisho (1912-1926) and early Showa (1926–1989), with a few selected pieces produced later on.
The Khalili Collection of Swedish Textiles comprises nearly a hundred textile panels, dating between 1700 and 1900. The majority of the works are from a one hundred-year period, and from the area of Scania, the southernmost region of Sweden. The textile collection contains art mostly made for wedding ceremonies in the region. While they played a part in the ceremonies, they were also a reflection of the artistry and skill of the weaver. Their designs often consist of symbolic illustrations of fertility and long life. In 2008 the collection was described as "the only extensive collection of Swedish flatweaves outside the country".
The Spanish damascene metalwork collection is one of the largest collections of its kind, illustrating damascening in which gold or silver is pressed into an iron surface to create fine decoration. The collection contains works by Plácido Zuloaga who revived and perfected the art of damascening in Spain, as well as from artists that he trained or influenced. Zuloaga was known for elaborate artworks, each requiring the skills of eight to twelve specialist artisans over a period of years. Some of the pieces were originally acquired by the 19th-century English collector Alfred Morrison. In total there are 100 works, 22 of which are signed by Plácido Zuloaga. Victoria and Albert Museum director Alan Borg described the collection's catalogue as "a landmark in the study of 19th century Spanish decorative art".
The Enamels of the World collection is the most comprehensive private collection of its kind. It consists of over 1,300 pieces and showcases the evolution of enamelling over a 300-year period. By including objects from Western Europe, Russia, Islamic countries, China, Japan, and America, it illustrates how these centres of enamel production influenced each other's styles. The best-known European enamellists are represented, including Peter Carl Fabergé, Cartier, and René Lalique, along with the Meiji-era Japanese artists who perfected the firing process. The collection illustrates the role of patronage in enamelling as many of its objects were created for royal or imperial households.
The Khalili Collections will be fully represented in a series of over 100 books, including exhibition catalogues, of which over 70 have already been published. Khalili has estimated that the publication of the catalogues and associated research papers would cost him between £20-30 million. The majority of the art works are kept in storage in London and Geneva.
Exhibitions.
Objects from the Khalili Collections have been exhibited in museums worldwide including the British Museum and Victoria & Albert Museum in London, the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, the Alhambra Palace in Granada, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Portland Art Museum and the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.
Property development.
18–19 Kensington Palace Gardens.
In 1995 Khalili bought 18 and 19 Kensington Palace Gardens for £40 million. Number 19 had been the Egyptian embassy and 18 was formerly part of the Russian embassy. Khalili's purchase of the property and its subsequent refurbishment cost £84 million. The refurbishment, involving 400 craftsmen, was believed to have been second in scale only to the restoration of Windsor Castle after the 1992 fire. Marble for pillars was imported from the same Indian quarry that had been used to build the Taj Mahal. The building was bought by businessman Bernie Ecclestone in 2001 for £50 million, making it the most expensive private home in the country. Ecclestone later sold it to industrialist Lakshmi Mittal.
Sixty London.
In 1997, Khalili bought Bath House, an office building on Holborn Viaduct for £7 million. In 2007 planning permission was granted for an 11-storey office building called The Wave. The building, completed in 2013, was designed by the architects Kohn Pederson Fox Associates. Since 2010 the project had been a partnership between Khalili's property company Favermead and AXA Real Estate Investment Managers. The new building was later leased by Amazon in 2013. In 2014 the building became one of the 13 winners in the Urban Land Institute's Global Awards for Excellence, citing the blending of modern and historic architectural elements.
Philanthropy.
Khalili has made many substantial donations to a number of organisations, institutions, and charities. His philanthropic activities are presently delivered through the Khalili Foundation. Donations in the field of education include a 2004 endowment of £2.25 million to the University of Oxford. The funds were used for the establishment of the Khalili Research Centre for the Art and Material Culture of the Middle East, which was opened by the Chancellor of Oxford University, Lord Patten, in July 2005. Khalili has since continued to support the centre. In 1989, Khalili donated £600,000 to establish the Khalili Chair of Islamic Art and Archaeology at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. This was the first university chair devoted to Islamic art. He also gave a further £200,000 in 2003 for the refurbishment of the lecture theatre at the school. In 1992, he gave an endowment to the University of Oxford for a Research Fellowship in Islamic Art. In 2011 he gave an endowment to Queens College, New York, where he earned his undergraduate degree, to create the Nasser D. Khalili Chair of Islamic Studies. In the early 1990s, when an advisor to the Sultan of Brunei, he persuaded the Sultan to provide £10 million to build the Brunei Gallery at the School of Oriental and African Studies.
One project of Khalili's Foundation is the Maimonidies Interfaith Initiative, originally founded in 1995 to promote "understanding, cooperation and peace between Jews, Christians and Muslims internationally through art, culture and education". Its activities include the Maimonides Interfaith Explorers, a UNESCO-supported online educational resource for children aged 10 to 11. The course is freely offered to schools and supported by a bank of four hundred online videos.
In the 1990s, Khalili commissioned a series of five paintings by the artist Ben Johnson called the "House of Peace" to promote peace and harmony between Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The foundation also donated 20,000 copies of "The Timeline History of Islamic Art and Architecture (Visions of Splendour)", written by Khalili, to schools in the United Kingdom and Islamic countries.
Faith in the Commonwealth is a global citizenship education project started jointly by the Commonwealth and the Khalili Foundation. It gives Training of Trainers workshops to people from the ages of 15 to 29 from different faith backgrounds, including those of no faith, supporting them in developing social action projects within their communities. These projects address topics such as hate speech, girls' education, and indigenous people's rights.
Khalili is the chair of Global Hope Europe, one of three not-for-profit organisations that together form the Global Hope Coalition. The coalition was founded in 2016 and gives annual awards to political leaders and "everyday heroes" who combat extremism and intolerance. Irina Bokova, former Director of UNESCO, is the coalition's honorary president.
Bibliography.
Khalili is the author of "The Timeline History of Islamic Art and Architecture", first published by Worth Press in 2005. It has been published in six editions, including in English, Arabic, French and Dutch. He is the co-author, with Nahla Nassar, of "A selection of Islamic Art at the Brunei Museum" (published 1990) and co-author, with Basil William Robinson and Tim Stanley, of the two-volume "Lacquer of the Islamic Lands" (published 1996 and 1997). He has also overseen the publication of dozens of volumes relating to his collections, including catalogues and scholarly essays.
Recognition.
He has been awarded many honours, including being the only non-Christian to have received knighthoods from two Popes. Pope John Paul II awarded him Knight of the Pontifical Equestrian Order of St Sylvester (KSS) and Pope Benedict XVI further elevated him to Knight Commander in that order (KCSS) for his pursuit of peace, education and culture among nations. In 2012, he was further honoured in this field by UNESCO who appointed him a Goodwill Ambassador. In early 2016 he was awarded the rank of Officier in the Legion of Honour by President François Hollande in a ceremony at the Élysée Palace.
He was knighted in the 2020 Birthday Honours for services to inter-faith relations and charity.
UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador.
In 2012, Khalili was honored by UNESCO as a Goodwill Ambassador for his work in the pursuit of peace among nations via education and culture. In this role, he has taken part in a number of international events to promote dialogue between cultures and between religions, including a 2013 keynote address to launch UNESCO's International Decade for the Rapprochement of Cultures. He has also spoken at UNESCO events about the role of culture in sustainable development. UNESCO Director Irina Bokova described him in 2017 as "one of our most dynamic UNESCO Goodwill Ambassadors."
Personal life.
In 1978 Khalili married Marion Easton, whom he had met when buying jewellery from an antique shop where she was working. They have three sons: Daniel and twins Benjamin and Raphael.