Art Talk: Katherine Anne Paul—Setting Densatil in the Treasury of Tibetan Art

To international connoisseurs of Tibetan art, the word Densatil evokes a baroque, jewel-encrusted, gilded wealth of spectacular sculptures. Katherine Anne Paul, Curator of Arts of Asia at the Newark Museum, not only orients Densatil in its global context during the period of its apogee, but also places these gems into a broader setting of Tibetan art that was made in other regions during related periods.

Katherine Anne Paul is Curator of the Arts of Asia at the Newark Museum. To celebrate the centennial of the Newark Museum’s renowned Tibet collection in 2011, Dr. Paul re-installed six permanent galleries of Tibetan art and created three temporary exhibitions of Tibetan art: Tsongkhapa—The Life of Tibetan Visionary, Nobles & Nomads, Historic Photographs of Tibet and Pots of Silver and Gold. Since her appointment at the Newark Museum in 2008 she has also created seven other exhibitions ranging from traditional to contemporary art originating in South, Southeast and East Asia. Previously, Dr. Paul was Associate Curator of Indian and Himalayan Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where she produced nine boutique exhibitions showcasing Himalayan art. She lectures widely and holds a B.A. in Art History from Reed College and a Ph.D. in the Languages and Cultures of Asia from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she studied Tibetan, Sanskrit and Nepali. As a Fulbright scholar, Dr. Paul lived in Nepal and has performed field research in 15 Asian nations during the past 18 years.

In conjunction with the exhibition Golden Visions of Densatil: A Tibetan Buddhist Monastery on view February 19 through May 18, 2014.

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