B. N. Goswamy

Brijinder Nath Goswamy (15 August 1933 – 17 November 2023) was an Indian art critic, art historian, and vice chairman of the Sarabhai Foundation of Ahmedabad, which runs the Calico Museum of Textiles. Goswamy was best known for his scholarship on Pahari and Punjabi and Sikh art, and Indian miniature paintings in general. He was the author of over 20 books on arts and culture, including Sakti Burman: A Private Universe, a monograph on the life and works of Sakti Burman, renowned Bengali painter and Masters of Indian Painting 1100-1900, a treatise on Indian miniature art. After the partition of Punjab in 1947, his family settled in Hoshiarpur. and the museum holds 1200 creations of contemporary Indian art. In 1967, he wrote his first book titled The Mughals and the Jogis of Jakhbar with J. S. Grewal. A second work by him followed the next year with Pahari Painting: The Family as the Basis of Style. Other works he authored on Punjabi history and Sikh art include The Mughal and Sikh Rulers and the Vaishnavas of Pindori (with J. S. Grewal) and I See No Stranger: Early Sikh Art and Devotion (with Caron Smith). is a study of this genre, where he is reported to have been successful in unearthing the genealogy of renowned miniaturists such as Pandit Seu, Nainsukh and Manaku. He published five books on this topic, Nainsukh of Guler: A Great Indian Painter from a Small Hill-State, Pahari Masters: Court Painters of Northern India Painters at the Sikh Court, Essence of Indian Art and Masters of Indian Painting 1100-1900. Collaborating with Eberhard Fischer, the Padma Shri winning Swiss-based German art historian and the co-author of a few of his books, he has staged a series of shows, under the title, Wonder of the Age, in many parts of the world. is a treatise on selected creations from Jain manuscripts to Indian miniatures. He has published 20 books to date, apart from several articles he has published in Indian and international journals and magazines. A Place Apart: Painting in Kutch, 1720-1820, Painted visions: The Goenka collection of Indian paintings, Ranga Roopa Gods, Words, Images, The Word is Sacred, Sacred is the Word: The Indian Manuscript Tradition, Domains of Wonder: Selected Masterworks of Indian Painting and I See No Stranger: Sikh Early Art and Devotion, are some of his other notable books. A Layered World is a 40,000-word audio-visual presentation prepared by Goswamy for Chandigarh Lalit Kala Akademi. He also wrote a regular column in The Tribune, titled Art n Soul

Students of Goswamy include Kanwarjit Singh Kang and Subhash Parihar. and the Sarabhai Fellowship in 1994.

Selected bibliography