Exhibition: Delighting Krishna (2025, NMAA)

Personal photographs from the exhibition at the National Museum of Asian Art in Washington, D.C. From the exhibition label:

Monumental paintings on cotton cloth representing the deity Krishna as a seven-year-old are unique to the Pushtimarg tradition of Hinduism. Known as pichwais, from the Hindi word for "behind," they were displayed behind icons of the child-god. Both theatrical backdrops and embodiments of Krishna, pichwais evoke momentous events from the years when he lived on earth in a cowherders' village. Some also record important historical ceremonies and the spiritual leaders who designed them. All were made to delight Krishna and to engage devotees' emotions. Most were painted in Nathdwara, Rajasthan state, in India, the global epicenter of the Pushtimarg community, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

After a three-year program of conservation and study, fourteen pichwais from the National Museum of Asian Art collections are on view together for the first time since the 1970s. They are juxtaposed with court paintings that illuminate Krishna's mischievous charm along with mixed-media works that reveal the multisensorial context of the pichwais. Collectively, the artworks convey the philosophical and emotional resonance of the Pushtimarg tradition as well as the creative ingenuity of the artists of Nathdwara.

Delighting Krishna is part of The Arts of Devotion, a five-year initiative at the National Museum of Asian Art dedicated to furthering civic discourse and understanding of religion.