Author Info
Vidya Dehejia is Barbara Stoler Miller Professor of Indian Art at Columbia University in New York. Over the last forty years, she has combined research with teaching and exhibition-related activities around the world. Extensive field travel in South Asia, with visits to sites of importance in Southeast Asia, has given her first-hand familiarity with the art of the region. Her background in classical Sanskrit and Tamil, and knowledge of a range of modern Indian languages has proved invaluable and helped her explore the theoretical basis for the portrayal of visual narratives in the context of India’s sculpture and painting. Her most recent work has been to explore artistic agency through a study of issues relating to craftsmen, workshops, teams, stone, and tools. Management and curatorial experience at the Smithsonian’s Freer and Sackler galleries has provided her a broad mandate to convey the excitement of the field of South Asian art to non-specialist audiences. For over forty-five years, Peter Rockwell has combined his work as a sculptor with the study of traditional stone construction and carving techniques. He has lectured on stone working at several institutions in the United States and Europe including the National Gallery in Washington, the Metropolitan Museum in New York, Kings College London, the Istituto Centrale del Restauro in Rome, and the Getty Museum in Los Angeles.