Gods in Living Color: Hindu Devotional Lithographs and the Birth of Modern Indian Visual Culture

Join us for this Meade Lecture and discover how devotional prints transformed art, faith, and daily life in colonial India.

Explore a transformative yet often overlooked chapter in South Asian art history: the explosion of popular devotional art through lithographic printing in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Calcutta (now Kolkata). These vibrant and accessible mass-produced images brought the divine into everyday life, offering devotees new ways to engage with their gods, and reshaping spiritual experiences in colonial India.

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Image Credit: “Ganesha” (detail), printed by Chore Bagan Art Studio, published by Amar Nath Shaha, about 1895-1900. Lithograph. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Marshall H. Gould Fund, 2017.3947.