Johannes Kalter was born in 1943 and grew up in rural southern Germany as well as in Mannheim. After finishing school Kalter did an apprenticeship as a gardener and worked in this profession for several years.
After getting in contact with Rural and Agricultural Sociology Kalter began to study at the Institute of Sociology and Ethnology in Heidelberg in 1969, where E.W. Müller and Ulla Johansen were among his teachers. He also became interested in Material Culture as well as in the museal anthropological work. Therefore he did several internships at the von Portheim-Stiftung in Heidelberg.
In 1973 Kalter graduated with a PhD and took up a position at the renowned Linden-Museum in Stuttgart in 1974, where he became the head chairman of the department for the Islamic Orient. He was leading this department until his retirement in 2005.
During these three decades he not only organized a large number of exhibitions and worked on several collections of the Linden-Museum but also did various research trips, i.e. to Morocco, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia. Since 1978 he was furthermore responsible for the architectural renewal of the Linden-Museum and since 1983 he was its deputy director.
Between 1975 and 1978 Kalter also was giving lectures at the Department of Cultural and Social Anthropology in Tübingen, an activity he took up again for the Institute for Near and Middle Eastern Studies in Tübingen in 1985. From 1993 until his retirement he held an honorary professorship at this institute and mainly focused on Material Culture in the Islamic Orient.
Kalter passed away on June 07th, 2014.
(photo (31.07.2013) by courtesy of Ekkehard Schröder)
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