Donald Stadtner

Donald M. Stadtner is an American art historian known for his publications on South and Southeast Asian art. He was for many years an associate professor of Art History and Asian Studies at the University of Texas, Austin. He divides his time between Walnut Creek in the San Francisco Bay Area and research trips to India and Southeast Asia.

Education and career

Stadtner studied with Dr. Anand Krishna at Banaras Hindu University in 1968 before completing his M.A. degree in art history at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in 1971. He received his Ph.D. in Indian art history at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1976, and then began teaching at the University of Texas, Austin. After completing a faculty Fulbright grant to India in 1980, he traveled to Myanmar (Burma), subsequently returning on Smithsonian fellowships in 1985 and 1987. Since 2015 he shifted his attention to the art and myths of Sri Lanka.

Publications

Stadtner has published several books and numerous articles in peer-reviewed journals and co-authored two museum catalogues.

• Sacred Sites of Burma: Myth and Folklore in an Evolving Spiritual Realm (Bangkok: River Books, 2011). ISBN 978-9749863961.
• Ancient Pagan: Buddhist Plain of Merit (Bangkok: River Books, 2005). ISBN 978-9749863275.
• Sacred Sites of Sri Lanka (Bangkok: River Book, 2025)
• Buddhist Art of Myanmar (Asia Society, NY & Yale University Press, 2015)
• The Jeweled Isle (an exhibition of Sri Lankan art) (Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2018)

See also

• Arts and entertainment in India
• Southeast Asian arts

References