Kavita Singh

We are saddened by the passing away of eminent art historian and scholar, Prof. Singh at age 58 on July 30, 2023. Her erudition and warmth will be greatly missed by her students, colleagues and friends.

Prof. Kavita Singh is the 2018 Infosys Prize laureate in Humanities. Kavita Singh is Professor of Art History at the Jawaharlal Nehru University. Singh’s research interests include the history of Indian painting (particularly the Mughal and Rajput schools), and the history and politics of museums, with special reference to India. Singh has published several essays on secularism and religiosity, fraught national identities, and the memorialization of difficult histories as they relate to museums in South Asia and beyond.

Volumes that Prof. Singh has edited and co-edited include New Insights into Sikh Art (Marg, 2003); Influx: Contemporary Art in Asia (Sage, 2013); No Touching, No Spitting, No Praying: The Museum in South Asia (Routledge, 2014) with Saloni Mathur; Nauras: The Many Arts of the Deccan (National Museum, 2015) with Preeti Bahadur Ramaswami; Museum Storage and Meaning: Tales from the Crypt (Routledge 2017, with Mirjam Brusius); and Scent Upon a Southern Breeze (Marg 2018).

Prof. Kavita Singh has curated exhibitions at the San Diego Museum of Art, the Devi Art Foundation, Jawaharlal Nehru University, and the National Museum of India.

In 2020 Kavita Singh was appointed to the J. Paul Getty Trust Board of Trustees.