The Philadelphia Museum of Art has one of the finest Indian and Himalayan art collections in the Americas, a long history of collecting, and a strong record of collaborative curatorial activity with the University of Pennsylvania. W. Norman Brown, founder of Penn’s South Asia Department, was an acting curator; he helped hire Stella Kramrisch from India as a professor at Penn and curator at the PMA; the current Stella Kramrisch Curator of Indian and Himalayan Art at the museum, Darielle Mason, received her Ph.D. in the History of Art from Penn.

This seminar is set up to give students with wide interest in the arts of South Asia and in museum experience an opportunity to learn about and to use directly the rich resources of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The class will meet in the Department of Indian and Himalayan Art at the PMA for most classes, Tuesdays 2-5.

Instructors: Prof. Michael W. Meister and Dr. Darielle Mason, Stella Kramrisch Curator, PMA

Syllabus (pdf)