Gül İrepoğlú

Prof. Dr. Arzu Gül Irepoglu was born in Istanbul in 1956. She studied Architecture in the Fine Arts Academy of Istanbul and graduated in 1979. She then joined the Department of Art History of Istanbul University as a member of the academic staff, where she obtained her Ph.D. in Art History in 1984. She became an associate professor in 1991 and a full professor in 1997. She retired in 2005 from Istanbul University after 26 years of service, to devote more time to writing. While at the university she taught European Architecture and Painting and Ottoman Art. Her courses encompassed Renaissance, Baroque, Neoclassical and Romantic Art, as well as European Art in the 19th century, Ottoman Art in the process of Westernization, Comparative History on Art and Ottoman Miniature Painting. She is particulary interested in intercultural comparative studies. She has published books and numerous articles on 18th-20th century Ottoman art; the history of jewelry and artistic relations between East and the West. Currently, she is working on a book on Ottoman jewelry. She is also a writer of fiction. Her first novel, I Left My Shadow over the Tulip Gardens, is set in Istanbul during the Tulip Era. Her second novel, The Concubine, where in the protagonists are Sultan Abdülhamid I, a concubine and a chief-eunuch, revels in the atmosphere of 18th century Istanbul. She is currently publishing her third novel, a unique and subjective history of Istanbul in the context of clothing, named Kaleidoscop with a Bow for Istanbul. She has also researched and hosted weekly television shows on channel TRT2. For the 2005-06 season her show The City and the Place, was recorded at the Beylerbeyi Palace on the Bosphorus, where in the company of guest actors, writers, poets, painters, musicians, art historians and various experts, she explored the identity of the city, past and present. The 2006-07 season saw a follow up TV show; “The Art and the Place”, which visited several prominent artistic venues, on which she both delivered her interpretations and again, interviewed a range of guests. Prof. Irepoglu is board member of the Turkish National Commission for UNESCO, and leads the expert Commitee for Tangible Cultural Heritage within the Commission. She is also member of the NGO TAC, which stands for Preservation of Turkish Cultural Heritage.She is board member of the foundation IELEV and member of ARIT, American Research Institute in Turkey.

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