About Us

Haig Klujian, owner and president of GENERATIONS RUG GALLERY Chicago, was born into the rug industry. Great-great-uncle Klujian paved the way in the late 1800s, becoming one of the first men to sell rugs through Grant Art Gallery in Chicago. The family’s first retail shop, called Klujian, opened on Wabash in the 1920s.

In 1938, Great-great-uncle Klujian’s nephew, Mathew Klujian, continued the legacy, opening Mathew Klujian & Sons on Devon Avenue in Chicago, where it remains today. Now run by his sons Mathew and Ed Klujian (Haig’s father and uncle respectively), it seems only natural that four generations later, Haig Klujian would continue in the family’s business-natural to the Klujians, that is.

In actuality, when you consider today’s high-tech world and the professions that most entrepreneurs follow in the 21st century, it’s unique and unusual that a young man at an early age would develop an interest in antiquities.

Haig was exposed to the family’s retail rug business early on. He helped out summers in the Devon Avenue store as young as 9 and 10 years old. As a high school teen, he served as office assistant and overseer of cleaning and repair.

“That’s when I started to take interest in older pieces,” Haig Klujian said. “My father would point out the rug types he learned from his father. Once I could identify those rugs, I would ask questions that would stump him. I decided to take things a step further and began to research on my own.”

Not content with learning from so-called authoritative books on rugs, which sometimes contradicted and always seemed to vary from author to author, Haig took his curiosity on the road in search of his own knowledge.

Viewing tens of thousands of area rugs around the world is at once exciting, challenging, mind opening and a privileged, global education of an extraordinary kind. Haig Klujian is among an elite group who can consider themselves antique insiders.

He brings his passion to design professionals with GENERATIONS RUG GALLERY. Home to a broad selection of hand-selected antiques and new decorative rugs, the to-the-trade venue offers a comfortable gallery-like setting, where designers can shop alone or with their clients.

Haig Klujian’s mission is simple: to have the best selection of diverse antique rugs available throughout the United States and the world.

“A lot of people specialize,” he said. “I want to have a quality selection of everything the designer will need.”