by Jon Lackman | 30 March 2009 | Asia
The most recent issue of Artibus Asiae (2008) contains a long, thoughtful appreciation by Helmut Brinker of the recently deceased Asian art scholar Dietrich Seckel. It also contains an obituary of scholar/curator/collector Stuart Cary Welch written by artist/collector Howard Hodgkin:
Stuart Cary Welch was undoubtedly the most important expert in the field of Moghul painting; he was also an old wicked, whose vanity and greed for works of art were almost insatiable. He inspired several generations of scholars and collectors through his teaching … He curated marvellous, eye-opening shows and, if he preferred to borrow from his own collections, hidden under pet family names, well, at least the owner was willing to lend … He was not so much a scholar-gypsy as a scholar-pirate … [Once] I was about to bid [at auction] when one of Cary’s large, pink hands held my right hand down. I was so shocked that I could not use my left hand. Naturally, he bought the painting … He was a great teacher, as I said, but not one to enjoy others’ successes. “Whenever I hear that one of my pupils has published something,” he told me, “I feel that one of my limbs has been cut off.” He could be very generous, however, as several museums can attest … Privately, too, he longed to share his enjoyment of art … [Once he] opened a leather travelling case that had been made to fit an Iznik plate and gave it to me to hold. It was one of the very best in terms of design, drawing, and colour. He had an amazing eye. We shall not see his like again.
