Personal Account

This account summarizes my development as a researcher, teacher and curator. It gives an idea of my experience, interests, the emphasis in my research, and the intended focus of future research.

  • Studies
  • Early Research
  • Independent Research
  • Teaching
  • Presentation
  • Museums and Collection

Studies

I studied at the Institute for Tibetan and Buddhist Studies at Vienna University with a combination of additional Sanskrit (Indology), Archaeology and Art History as second subject. I also learned Tibetan during the course of my studies and use both languages regularly in my research work.1 My education is thus that of a Tibetologist with a wider background in South Asian Buddhism and an emphasis on art and archaeology.

Fortunate circumstances allowed me from an early stage of my studies to actively participate in the development of a research project headed by Deborah E. Klimburg-Salter, supported by the Austrian ‘Fonds zur Förderung Wissenschaftlicher Forschung’ and housed at the University of Vienna. From the beginning I was involved in increasing degrees in all aspect of successive projects, including their generation, planning, organization and representation.

My most influential teachers were Deborah E. Klimburg-Salter, art historian, who directed the research projects I have been intimately involved with; Ernst Steinkellner, Buddhologist, who supported the research projects and my work in every possible way; and Maurizio Taddei (†), archaeologist and art-historian, my PhD advisor with whom I have also studied Gandhāran art.

Early Research

Undertaking privately-financed research trips since 1990 and participating in all major field research within the framework of Klimburg-Salter’s research project from 1991 to 2001 my academic career has from the start focused on in situ documentation and research. Consequently, I have contributed more than 20.000 slides and negatives to the Western Himalayan Archives Vienna (WHAV), now housed at the Institute of Art History at the University of Vienna.2
The projects I have participated in concentrated on the earliest Buddhist art in the western Himalayas, attributable to the period from the 10th to the 13th centuries. This art can basically be read in two ways: on the one hand it is evidence for the latest phase of Buddhism in Northwest India, a stage of development otherwise almost completely lost, on the other hand it documents the main phase of the Tibetan adoption and adaptation of Indian Buddhism.
The artistic heritage of this art is undoubtedly Indian, be it Kashmiri or representative of other schools of north Indian art (clay sculptures of a technique described in Indian Śilpaśāstra literature,3 painted textile patterns best related to contemporary Gujarati textiles (Tabo),4 unusual iconographic types, both Buddhist and Hindu (note 12), that appear to be specific to northwest India and at least partly derive from a Kashmiri context5). In addition, certain artistic elements can be traced beyond the Indian heritage, e.g. to Central Asia6 or even the whole area surrounding the western Himalayas (especially evident in the textile patterns of the Alchi group of monuments7).
Besides working towards a more detailed picture of early western Himalayan art and its monuments in general,8 my research has in this phase concentrated on clay sculptures,9 painting,10 wood carvings,11 iconography12 and inscriptions (see note 1).