Talks
Reflections of India
Dr. Sonya Rhie Mace and Dr. Barbara Tannenbaum
Discover a new perspective on the British Raj through the rare and stunning photographs of Raja Deen Dayal.
Join Dr. Sonya Rhie Mace and Dr. Barbara L. Tannenbaum, curators at the Cleveland Museum of Art, for a conversation about their collaborative exhibitions, including the 2023 exhibition Raja Deen Dayal: The King of Indian Photographers.
Dr. Mace and Dr. Tannenbaum have dedicated their careers to exploring the profound interplay between photography and historical Indian art. Their exhibition on Raja Deen Dayal, has shed light on how photographers and artists have presented Indian culture and religion from diverse perspectives.
Through a series of joint projects, such as, Temples and Worship in Southern Asia (currently on view) and Krishna and the Path of Grace, they have juxtaposed photography with historical Indian paintings, textiles, and artifacts.
This conversation promises to offer valuable insights into the history of photography in India and its enduring impact on our understanding of art and culture.
Image credits: Royal Elephant Ramkali with a Mahout, c. 1761. Northwestern India, Rajasthan, Rajput kingdom of Mewar, Udaipur, Court of Ari Singh (reigned 1761-73). Gum tempera, ink, and gold on paper; painting: 20.6 x 21.4 cm (8 1/8 x 8 7/16 in.); overall: 24.1 x 25 cm (9 1/2 x 9 13/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Dr. Norman Zaworski 2005.202
Sonya Rhie Mace
Sonya Rhie Mace began her tenure as the curator of Indian and Southeast Asian art at the Cleveland Museum of Art in September 2012. She has been active in research, restitution, and reconstruction efforts pertaining to the museum’s important holdings of sculpture from Cambodia. Her most recent exhibition, Revealing Krishna: Journey to Cambodia’s Sacred Mountain, open from November 14, 2021, to January 30, 2022, and accompanying publication feature a new restoration of the museum’s monumental stone sculpture Krishna Lifting Mount Govardhan in the context of the site from which it came.
Active in the Joint Program in Art History with Case Western Reserve University, she is an adjunct professor, teaching courses on topics in the art of India and global medieval monuments and manuscripts.
Barbara Tannenbaum
Barbara Tannenbaum is the curator of photography, chair of prints, drawings, and photographs at The Cleaveland Museum of Art. She organized the first museum exhibition of print-on-demand photobooks, DIY: Photographers & Books, and wrote the accompanying catalogue. Among the exhibitions organized for Cleveland have been explorations of the career of Ilse Bing; Frank Gohlke and Emmet Gowin’s photographs of the aftermath of the Mount Saint Helens eruption; the photographs and videos of Hank Willis Thomas; 19th-century photographs of India under the British Raj; and the museum’s holdings of American Pictorialist photography.
For these and other contributions, Tannenbaum received the Association of Midwest Museum’s Distinguished Career Award in 2010 and a Northern Ohio Live magazine Award of Achievement in 1998. In 2002, that publication designated her one of the 500 Most Influential Women in NE Ohio; the previous year, the YWCA named her one of 100 women of distinction in Summit County. Tannenbaum has held research fellowships from the Henry Luce Foundation, the American Association of University Women, and the Danforth Foundation.
