Sheila Canby
Curator of Islamic collections
Eastern Islamic world including
Iran, Central Asia, Islamic India
Department: Middle East
Telephone: +44 (0)20 7323 8846
Email: scanby @ thebritishmuseum.ac.uk
Sheila Canby is curator of Islamic
collections with a concentration on Iran, Central Asia and Islamic
India. The focus of her research has been on the art of the
Safavid Dynasty which ruled Iran from 1501 to1722. At
the moment Sheila is working on an exhibition that will investigate
the nature of public and private piety during the reign of Shah
`Abbas I (1587-1629) and how three great Shi`a shrines, Ardabil,
Mashhad and Qum, functioned under him. The exhibition will
contain objects that he gave to the three shrines and analogous
material.
Sheila is also working on the ‘Discover
Islamic Art’ website which includes objects and architecture from
collections in the Arab lands on the rim of the Mediterranean and
other European countries. Before joining the British Museum
in 1991, she worked at the Brooklyn Museum, the Los Angeles County
Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Fogg Museum, and the
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Current British Museum projects
Exhibition scheduled for 2009, Shah `Abbas and
the Great Safavid Shrines
Research on Iranian manuscript illumination of
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
Previous British Museum projects
2004, Islamic gallery (Room 34)
refreshment
Exhibitions curated:
Indian paintings and drawings from the
collection of Howard Hodgkin, May-August 1994.
June-August, 1995, Europe in India: Indian
paintings and theirEuropean prototypes (also shown at the Burrell
Collection, Glasgow, summer 1997)
Princes, Poets and Paladins: Islamic and
Indian Paintings from the Collection of Prince and Princess
Sadruddin Aga Khan, January-April 1998 (also shown at the Sackler
Museum, Harvard University; Rietberg Museum, Zurich; and Musee
d’Art et d’Histoire, Geneva, 1998-99)
1991-2006, 27 small installations, mostly of paintings,
in Room 34
External fellowships/ honorary positions/ membership of professional bodies
British Institute of Persian Studies, Council
member
Asia House, Cultural Council member
Royal Asiatic Society, fellow
External examiner for Birkbeck College,
Edinburgh University, Oxford University and SOAS
Publications
Most recent publications
S. Canby, ‘Manuscript Illumination in Safavid Iran, 1501-1722’,
Center, 26 (December 2006)
S. Canby, Review of B. O’Kane, (ed.), The
Iconography of Islamic Art: studies in Honour of Robert
Hillenbrand, Bulletin of the School
of Oriental and African Studies
(October, 2006)
S. Canby, Review of O. Watson, Ceramics from
Islamic Lands, College Art Association website, (2006)
S. Canby, ‘Islamic’, The World in
Colours, R. Kerr (ed.), Oriental Ceramic Society
exhibition, Brunei Gallery, 25 April-24 June, (2006)
S. Canby, Islamic Art in Detail
(British Museum Press, 2005)