PhD in History of Arts - South Asian in Philadelphia United States | University of Pennsylvania

The exploration of South Asian artistic traditions boasts a rich legacy at the University of Pennsylvania. W. Norman Brown, the institution's inaugural Sanskrit professor, was equally renowned for his expertise in Indian illuminated manuscripts, serving as both an advisor and consulting curator for Indian art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. In 1947, he established America's pioneering Department of South Asian Studies at Penn. His notable faculty selections included Ernest Bender, an authority on medieval Jainism and its artistic and literary expressions, and Stella Kramrisch, a preeminent 20th-century scholar of Indian art whom Brown brought from Calcutta. Kramrisch also held the position of Curator for Indian and Himalayan Art at the Philadelphia Museum, where she curated groundbreaking exhibitions throughout her distinguished career.