Biography
Deepali Dewan is an art historian with a special interest in South Asia and Senior Curator at the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto. She also teaches in the Department of Art at the University of Toronto and is affiliated with the Centre for South Asian Studies. Dr. Dewan's research interests encompass nineteenth and twentieth-century visual culture of South Asia and the South Asian Diaspora. Her work on colonial South Asia examines how art schools served as the link between the collection and circulation of objects and ideas in South Asian art history. Her research on contemporary art focuses on the work of specific artists as a way to map post-colonial visual practice. She is the author of Raja Deen Dayal: Artist-Photographer in 19th-Century India (2013, co-authored with Deborah Hutton), Embellished Reality: Indian Painted Photographs (2012), and the editor of Bollywood Cinema Showcards: Indian Film Art from the 1950s to the 1980s (2011). All three were accompanied by exhibitions. Dr. Dewan joined the Royal Ontario Museum in January 2002. Previously, she had worked at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis and The Asia Society, New York City. She has received fellowships from the Social Science Research Council, the American Institute of Indian Studies, the College Art Association, the MacArthur Program/Interdisciplinary Center for the Study of Global Change at the University of Minnesota, the Alkazi Foundation for the Arts, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.