‘Artists of Nathdwara’ lecture is Sept. 13

The University of Nebraska–Lincoln’s Robert Hillestad Textiles Gallery will host the lecture “The Artists of Nathdwara: Traditions and Contexts” by Madhuvani Ghose at 5 p.m. Sept. 13 in Room 11 of the Home Economics Building. The free, public lecture will be followed by a reception in the gallery.

Ghose is Alsdorf Associate Curator of Indian, Southeast Asian, Himalayan and Islamic Art at the Art Institute of Chicago. Her talk is in conjunction with the exhibition “Pigment on Cloth: Tradition, Family and the Art of Indian Pichvai Painting,” on view through Nov. 16 at the Hillestad Gallery. The exhibition introduces visitors to the historic Indian practice of pichvais, devotional paintings on cotton cloth originally made as temple hangings in Nathdwara, India. The exhibition presents the work of one contemporary family that represents the fifth, sixth and seventh generations of pichvais artists. It documents their continuing creation of these visual narratives, many depicting events in the life of the Hindu deity Krishna.

Ghose earned a Bachelor of Arts with honors in history from Presidency University in Calcutta, India. She also earned a Bachelor of Arts First Class from the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, specializing in Asian art and archaeology. Her doctoral dissertation on early Indian art was completed at the University of London in 2003. She then held a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Eastern Art at the Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford.

Ghose taught at the Universities of London, Oxford and Sussex from 1998-2006 and at the University of Chicago in 2008. She was the lecturer in South Asian art at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London from 2004-2006.

Ghose is the first Alsdorf Associate Curator at the Art Institute of Chicago, the second-largest art museum in the United States. In 2008, she launched the museum’s Indian program with the inauguration of its Alsdorf Galleries of Indian, Southeast Asian, Himalayan and Islamic Art.

The Hillestad Gallery is located on the second floor of the Home Economics Building, 1650 N. 35th St. It is open 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday and by appointment. Admission is free. Guest parking is available near the Home Economics Building and in metered stalls in the Nebraska East Union lot. For more information, click here or call 402-472-2911.