1. ‘Alice from Switzerland’
A Visionary Artist And Scholar Across Two Continents
lecture by Dr.Johannes Beltz
Tuesday, 3rd February, 2015

2. Alice from Switzerland: A Visionary Artist and Scholar across Two Continents
Johannes Beltz, one of the co-curators of the ongoing exhibition “Alice from Switzerland”, highlights the
manifold roles and the artistic and academic significance of Alice Boner. The presentation focuses on three
major arguments.
First, the lecture works out Alice Boner’s deep involvement with Indian intellectuals of her time. Alice Boner
travelled with Uday Shankar in India and worked for his company in Europe and North America. She
published with Pandit Sadashiv Rath Sharma, the Shilpaprakasha and the Vastu-Upanishad.
Second, in the perspective of interaction and exchange, Alice Boner significantly shaped our understanding
of India’s art history. She not only explored, documented and published on temple sculptures, architecture
and Kathakali but also shared her findings and ideas with leading scholars like Ananda Coomaraswamy and
Stella Kramrisch. Like her colleagues she donated her collection of Indian antiquities to a public art
museum. In doing so, Alice Boner contributed to a newly universalised and highly spiritualized perception
of Indian art, which largely dominates academic discourse even today.
Third, it is important to critically discuss this academic discourse on Indian sacred art and show how Alice
Boner also tried to offer new approaches. Using geometric principles, she took a fresh look at Indian
sculptures and freed the viewer from getting lost by the numerous iconographic details. Alice Boner
proposed to perceive the sculpture as a true work of art, which is composed within certain principles. An
understanding of compositional pattern helps to discover meanings, not necessarily visible at the first
encounter with the art. In this sense, Alice Boner and we along with her, invite the audience to look beyond.
Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya, Mumbai
(formerly Prince of Wales Museum of Western India)
invites you to a lecture
Alice from Switzerland
A Visionary Artist and Scholar Across Two Continents
by Dr. Johannes Beltz,
Curator of the exhibition and Head of Collections, Museum Rietberg, Zürich
As part of educational programme for the ongoing exhibition on
the life and works of Alice Boner, a collaborative exhibition between
CSMVS Mumbai and Museum Rietberg, Zürich
Tuesday, 3rd February, 2015 at 6pm
at the Auditorium, Visitors Centre, CSMVS
Do join us for Tea at 5:30pm