Program Details
Crossing the Line and Closing the Circle: The Legacy of Independence on Modern Indian Art
Saturday, August 17
10:00 a.m. PT
Speaker: Siddhartha V. Shah, John Wieland 1958 Director, Mead Art Museum at Amherst College
Virtual Event
The partition of British India in August 1947 divided the subcontinent into the nations of India and Pakistan and incited the largest mass migration in human history. Independence from colonial rule was thus cause for both celebration and despair—a paradox that artists of the period represented in varied and arresting ways. Post-independence art reveals a unique confluence of mixed emotions and histories, where ancient tales and modern abstraction convey both sorrow and hope, separation and unity. This presentation examines the dreams and visions of artists working after 1947 through works of art that convey tremendous cultural pride as well as visions of a hopeful though undetermined future.
Speaker Bio: Siddhartha V. Shah is the John Wieland 1958 Director of the Mead Art Museum at Amherst College. He was previously the Director of Education and Civic Engagement and Curator of South Asian Art at the Peabody Essex Museum, which is located in in Salem, Massachusetts and home to one of the leading collections of modern Indian art outside the subcontinent. Dr. Shah earned his BA in art history from Johns Hopkins University, an MA in Hindu philosophy and Jungian psychoanalysis from the California Institute of Integral Studies, and a PhD in art history from Columbia University. His academic and curatorial projects have been featured in publications ranging from The Times of India and India Today, to The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, and Psychology Today.
Please reserve your spot. All participants will be sent the Zoom link and instructions via email once you secure your place.
Sponsored by the South Asian Arts Council.
Featured at top right: Siddhartha V. Shah