Stephen P. Huyler, acclaimed art historian and author, will present his new memoir, Transformed by India: A Life. Huyler’s captivating memoir chronicles over five decades of immersion in Indian culture, beginning with his arrival on his twentieth birthday when he pedaled a bicycle rickshaw across the Indian border in 1971. Few foreigners have traveled as extensively throughout India, documenting the country’s rich traditions, sacred arts, and diverse communities from maharajahs to village artisans.
Transformed by India: A Life has received advance praise from distinguished figures including His Holiness the Dalai Lama, who wrote the foreword, and Dr. Shashi Tharoor, former UN diplomat and member of the Indian Parliament, who contributed the preface.
About Stephen Stephen P. Huyler is an art historian, cultural anthropologist, photographer and author conducting a lifelong survey of India’s sacred art and crafts and their meanings within rural societies. He has spent an average of four months each year during the last five decades traveling in Indian villages documenting craftsmanship and contemporary traditions.
Huyler has served as a consultant and/or guest curator for more than twenty-five museum exhibitions of Indian art, including shows at the Smithsonian’s Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, the American Museum of Natural History, the Museum of International Folk Art (Santa Fe), the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, the Houston Museum of Natural Science and Mingei International Museum (San Diego).
He is acknowledged as a leading photographer of India with an invaluable and extensive image archive. He has had many solo exhibitions of his images at such venues as the Smithsonian, the Asian Art Museum (San Francisco), the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, and the Kodak Center for Creative Imaging.
Stephen Huyler's published works:
- Village India Abrams (1984)
- Painted Prayers: Women’s Art in Village India Rizzoli (1994)
- Gifts of Earth: Terracottas and Clay Sculptures of India Mapin (1996)
- Meeting God: Elements of Hindu Devotion Yale University Press (1999)
- Daughters of India: Art and Identity Abbeville (2008)
- Sonabai: Another Way of Seeing Mapin (2009)
Copies of Transformed by India: A Life will be available for purchase and a book signing will take place directly after the talk.