Lecture with Dr Priya Jaradi
The 1959 Donation from the Government of India to Malaya: Towards Decolonization and the Teaching of Asian Art Histories?
Please join us on Wednesday 23rd of September 2026
Venue: William Macmahon Ball Theatre, Old Arts Building (PAR-149-L1-107)
Time: 6:00pm- 7:30pm
Registration: https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/the-1959-donation-from-the-government-of-india-to-malaya-tickets-1998932874036
Description
In 1959, the University of Malaya Art Museum (predecessor institution of the NUS Museum, Singapore) received a first-of-its-kind donation of fifty-five objects and one hundred photographs from the Government of India.
To what extent did these objects spur the framing and teaching of Asian art histories in a wider, connected landscape of decolonisation, Third World solidarities, nation-building, and modernisation? Drawing on her recent publication, Priya Jaradi considers this donation from a variety of personal, museological, and pedagogical perspectives that supersede its apparent national, civilizational, and diplomatic connotations.
About the speaker
Priya Maholay-Jaradi is Convenor for Art History at the Department of History, National University of Singapore (NUS). Jaradi served as assistant curator (South Asia) at the Asian Civilisations Museum (2005-2007). She is the author of Fashioning a National Art: Baroda’s Royal Collection and Institutions (1875-1924), Oxford University Press (2016), and volume editor of Baroda: A Cosmopolitan Provenance in Transition, Mumbai: Marg Foundation (2015). Jaradi’s ongoing research uncovers the contributions of collections, curricula, and pedagogies to revisionist art histories and historiographies of South and Southeast Asia, particularly, India and Singapore. Relatedly, her recent publication is titled, Transcultural Imaginations: Revisiting the 1959 Donation from the Government of India to Malaya (NUS Museum, 2025). Jaradi’s NUS-sponsored massive online course titled 700 Years of Visual Arts: Singapore in the World has just launched for an NUS and a global learner base.
This event is presented by the Australian Institute of Art History (AIAH) at the University of Melbourne. To stay informed about future AIAH events, please subscribe to the newsletter.
image: Resource Gallery, NUS Museum.
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