Welch, Stuart Cary 1928-2008 (Cary Welch, Stuart Cary Welch, Jr.)

OBITUARY NOTICE—

See index for CA sketch: Born April, 1928, in Buffalo, NY; died August, 2008, in Hokkaido, Japan. Art historian and scholar, curator, collector, educator, and author. With no formal training whatsoever in a specialty field that did not exist until he created it, Welch became one of the most highly respected Western scholars of Islamic and Indian art in the world. Welch discovered Indian drawings as a boy in upstate New York. When he later entered Harvard University as an art major, he was disappointed to learn that Indian art was not part of the curriculum. In those days, the history and culture of South Asia and what is now referred to as the Middle East had not yet captured the attention of Western scholars and collectors. When he joined the faculty of the university and became an assistant keeper at the Fogg Art Museum in 1956, Welch changed that, single-handedly at first. He traveled widely, collecting the finest Indian and Islamic artwork that he could acquire, from paintings and drawings to sculpture, textiles, and military hardware. He built a large personal collection at the same time that he was curating exhibitions at the Fogg Museum and elsewhere around the world. One of these exhibitions was "India! Art and Culture: 1300-1900," which opened at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1985 to critical acclaim. He was also a consultant to the museum's department of Islamic art. Welch retired from Harvard in 1995. By the end of his career he had established a new field of scholarly study and inspired an appreciation for Islamic and South Asian art throughout the art-loving world. Welch was the author or coauthor of nearly twenty books, including Gods, Thrones, and Peacocks: Northern Indian Painting from Two Traditions, Fifteenth to Nineteenth Centuries (1965), Royal Persian Manuscripts (1976), Room for Wonder: Indian Painting during the British Period, 1760-1880 (1978), Arts of the Islamic Book: The Collection of Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan (1982), and From Mind, Heart, and Hand: Persian, Turkish, and Indian Drawings from the Stuart Cary Welch Collection (2004).

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

New York Times, September 11, 2008, p. C12.