Stuart Cary Welch Jr. (2 April 1928 – 13 August 2008) was an American

scholar A scholar is a person who pursues academic and intellectual activities, particularly academics who apply their intellectualism into expertise in an area of study. A scholar can also be an academic, who works as a professor, teacher, or researc ...

and

curator A curator (from la, cura, meaning "to take care") is a manager or overseer. When working with cultural organizations, a curator is typically a "collections curator" or an "exhibitions curator", and has multifaceted tasks dependent on the parti ...

Indian Indian or Indians may refer to: Peoples South Asia * Indian people, people of Indian nationality, or people who have an Indian ancestor ** Non-resident Indian, a citizen of India who has temporarily emigrated to another country * South Asia ...

and

Islamic art Islamic art is a part of Islamic culture and encompasses the visual arts produced since the 7th century CE by people who lived within territories inhabited or ruled by Muslim populations. Referring to characteristic traditions across a wide ra ...

Life and career

Welch was born to a prominent family in

Buffalo, New York Buffalo is the second-largest city in the U.S. state of New York (behind only New York City) and the seat of Erie County. It is at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of the Niagara River, and is across the Canadian border from Sou ...

. His maternal grandfather,

Norman Edward Mack Norman Edward Mack (July 24, 1856 – December 26, 1932) was editor and publisher of the '' Buffalo Times''. He was also Chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 1908 to 1912. Biography He was born July 24, 1856, in West Williams, Ont ...

, was publisher of The Buffalo Times. He began collecting drawings by Indian artists as a boy. He earned a bachelor's degree in fine arts from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

in 1950, then did graduate work there in

classical art Ancient Greek art stands out among that of other ancient cultures for its development of naturalistic but idealized depictions of the human body, in which largely nude male figures were generally the focus of innovation. The rate of stylistic d ...

. Because they offered no Indian or Islamic art courses at the time, he became an autodidact. His first paid position at Harvard was in 1956, as honorary assistant keeper of Islamic Art at the

Fogg Museum The Harvard Art Museums are part of Harvard University and comprise three museums: the Fogg Museum (established in 1895), the Busch-Reisinger Museum (established in 1903), and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum (established in 1985), and four research ...

. He later developed one of the first curricula for Islamic and Indian art. He was curator of Islamic and Later Indian art at the

Harvard Art Museum The Harvard Art Museums are part of Harvard University and comprise three museums: the Fogg Museum (established in 1895), the Busch-Reisinger Museum (established in 1903), and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum (established in 1985), and four research ...

, and from 1979 to 1987, he was also special consultant for the department of Islamic art at the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

.Raynor, Vivien (December 21, 1979). Art People; Expert on India gets Met post.''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' Welch taught at Harvard until his retirement in 1995, and he donated much of his collection to the school.McQuaid, Cate (November 19, 1999). Ex-curator donates 300 works to Harvard. ''

Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...

'' A resident of

New Hampshire New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec to the nor ...

, Welch died of a

heart attack A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when blood flow decreases or stops to the coronary artery of the heart, causing damage to the heart muscle. The most common symptom is chest pain or discomfort which ma ...

while traveling in

Hokkaido, Japan is Japan's second largest island and comprises the largest and northernmost prefecture, making up its own region. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaidō from Honshu; the two islands are connected by the undersea railway Seikan Tunnel. The la ...

.Fox, Margalit (September 10, 2008)
Stuart Cary Welch, Scholar and Collector of Islamic and Indian art, Dies at 80.
''

'' The remainder of his personal collection was auctioned by Sotheby's in 2011. On 6 April 2011, a single page from the

Shahnameh of Shah Tahmasp The ''Shahnameh'' of Shah Tahmasp ( fa, شاهنامه شاه‌طهماسب) or Houghton ''Shahnameh'' is one of the most famous illustrated manuscripts of the ''Shahnameh'', the national epic of Greater Iran, and a high point in the art of t ...

(The Houghton Shahnameh) of which Welch was the leading scholar, was sold for 7.4 million pounds ($12 million).

Selected publications

*''Royal Persian Manuscripts'', Thames & Hudson, 1976, *''Room for Wonder: Indian Painting During the British Period, 1760-1880.'' American Federation of Arts, 1978 *''Imperial Mughal Painting.'' Braziller, 1978 *''The Houghton Shahnameh'' (with Martin Bernard Dickson). Harvard University, 1981

References

External links

The Stuart Cary Welch Collection, Part One: Arts of the Islamic WorldThe Stuart Cary Welch Islamic and South Asian Photograph Collection
at Harvard Library 1928 births 2008 deaths Harvard College alumni American art historians American art curators Historians of Islamic art 20th-century American historians American male non-fiction writers 20th-century American male writers {{US-art-historian-stub

Life and career

Selected publications

References

Further reading

External links