R. Siva Kumar

Who is R. Siva Kumar?

Raman Siva Kumar, known as R. Siva Kumar, is an internationally noted contemporary Indian art historian, art critic, and curator. In 2010, in his interview with the Web of Stories the eminent artist K. G. Subramanyan refers to R. Siva Kumar as “one of the best" art historians . R. Siva Kumar's major research has been in the area of early Indian modernism with special focus on the Santiniketan school. He has written several important books, lectured widely on modern Indian art and contributed articles to prestigious international projects such as the Art Journal, Grove Art Online or the The Dictionary of Art, Oxford University Press.

He was awarded the Kesari puraskaram for art writing by the Lalit Kala Akademi, Kerala in 2010. He has also curated major exhibitions like "Santiniketan: The Making of a Contextual Modernism", and The Last Harvest : Paintings of Rabindranath Tagore and retrospectives of important Indian artists, such as Rabindranath Tagore, Benode Behari Mukherjee, K. G. Subramanyan. He also has co-curated an exhibition titled "Tryst with Destiny" for the Singapore Art Museum to mark the 50 years of Indian Independence and served as a curatorial adviser for Rhythms of India: The Art of Nandalal Bose curated by Sonia Rhie Quintanilla for the San Diego Museum of Art.