Darielle Mason
Darielle Mason is the Stella Kramrisch Curator of Indian and Himalayan Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Mason, Darielle
Mason, Darielle
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Description: Kantha: The Embroidered Quilts of Bengal from the Jill and Sheldon Bonovitz...
Sheldon was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1937. Growing up he worked in his family’s wholesale fish business, held a variety of odd jobs, and, in his own words, lived “at the edge...
PublisherPhiladelphia Museum of Art
Related print edition pages: pp.240-251
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00323.13
Description: Kantha: The Embroidered Quilts of Bengal from the Jill and Sheldon Bonovitz...
As her monumental 1981 book The Presence of Siva reflects, Stella Kramrisch was a consummate myth-maker...
PublisherPhiladelphia Museum of Art
Related print edition pages: pp.158-168
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00323.9
Description: Kantha: The Embroidered Quilts of Bengal from the Jill and Sheldon Bonovitz...
Recycled rags, household cloths, ritual actions, women’s personal expressions, intergenerational bonds, icons of cultural and national identity, links with the ancient past, representations of cosmic reintegration, works of art...
PublisherPhiladelphia Museum of Art
Related print edition pages: pp.1-29
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00323.1
Description: Kantha: The Embroidered Quilts of Bengal from the Jill and Sheldon Bonovitz...
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00323
This first book-length study on kanthas published outside of South Asia focuses on two premier collections, one assembled by the legendary historian of Indian art, Dr. Stella Kramrisch, the other by Jill and Sheldon Bonovitz, leading proponents of self-taught art. Created from worn-out garments imaginatively embroidered by women with motifs and tales drawn from a rich regional repertoire, kanthas traditionally were stitched as gifts for births, weddings, and other family occasions.

Innovative essays by leading scholars explore the domestic, ritual, and historical contexts of the fascinating quilts in these collections—made between the mid-19th and mid-20th century in what is today Bangladesh and West Bengal, India—and trace their reinterpretation as emblems of national identity and works of art.
Author
Print publication date December 2009 (in print)
Print ISBN 9780300154429
EISBN 9780300270549
Illustrations 270
Print Status in print