The death of one of the most prominent luminaries of Nepali arts, Dina Bangdel, has left the country’s art sector shocked and in mourning. Bangdel passed away in the Unites States on Tuesday, at the age of 54, following complications from a sinusitis surgery. 

Bangdel, an art critic and historian, was an associate professor at the Qatar-based Virginia Commonweath University, where she specialised in South Asian, Indian and Himalayan arts, and a lifelong promoter of Nepali arts. 

Shortly after the news about Bangdel’s death surfaced, performance artist Ashmina Ranjit took to the social networking site Facebook. “Extremely shocked... Today is the saddest day for us artists in Nepal and for the Nepali art world,” Ranjit wrote. Speaking to the Post, Ranjit lauded Bangdel for her role in placing Nepali art onto the world map. “Her demise is an irreparable loss for the nation... She had a great role in taking Nepali art to the international level.”

Professor Deepak Simkhada, who collaborated with Bangdel on several art projects, remembers the late art historian in these words: “The sad news of Dina Bangdel’s sudden departure from this physical world came as a shock. It’s true that she had contributed much to the field of Nepali art, but she would have contributed even more had she lived longer. That said, everything, born or made eventually comes to an end. However, in the case of Dina, her time simply hadn’t come.”

Speaking to the Post, chancellor of Nepal Academy of Fine Arts, Ragini Upadhyay, said, “Dina was an exemplary art critic and art historian. Moreover, she was an ideal curator. She had an eye, and an unusual sense, for details in artworks. As a woman, it was a great pride for us that someone scholar like Dina was committed on improving our art scene in the world.” 

While Paubha artist Lok Chitrakar remembered Bangdel as someone who was equally invested in studying and promoting both traditional and contemporary art. “I am a traditional artist but what Dina did was she mixed contemporary and traditional arts, which made a great deal of contribution in the artistic field,” he remembered, “With a perfect blend of contemporary and traditional arts, Dina promoted them internationally, which is a huge motivation for us as artists here in Nepal.” 

Speaking to the Post, Sangeeta Thapa, director at Siddhartha Arts Gallery, said, “Well-versed in contemporary and traditional arts around the world, it is fair to say that there is no one who has a caliber and international stature like Dina does. This is a great loss for us and our art scene.” 

The same sentiment was echoed by artist and arts educator Sujan Chitrakar. “If Dina would have been alive, she would have made innumerable contribution to our artistic community and I already feel that emptiness,” he said, “Personally too, Dina helped me in major projects. She was always enthusiastic about the courses that are being taught at the School of Arts at the Kathmandu University. She was an instrumental figure for Nepali arts. This is a sad moment for Nepali arts.”

For Bangdel, who as a child traveled extensively with her father—artist and scholar Lain Singh Bangdel—the affinity towards the various strands of Nepali art started early. “Being away from the country when I was so young allowed me to identify with my roots early on, as opposed to defining myself in the western way,” she said in a 2013 interview with Dreams magazine. “When people ask me whether I want to come back, I think the important question to ask is what you are doing for your country, whether you live in Nepal or abroad. The question I ask myself is: What I can do for my country from where I am. My way of doing it is sharing what Nepal has given to the world, in terms of art.” 

As part of her upcoming projects, Bangdel had been researching the art and ritual traditions of Newar Buddhism in the Kathmandu Valley and the development of Tantric Buddhist iconography in the Himalayan regions, principally Nepal and Tibet. She was also in the midst of preparing her father’s retrospective at the Welt Museum in Austria in 2018. She was also prepping for a collaborative show of her father’s and the Indonesian artist Affandi’s artworks in Paris. Bangdel also was a life-long advocate for the repatriation of stolen artworks back to Nepal. 

In a country which is struggling to place itself on the world art map despite its rich artistic history, Bangdel contributed much to bring its finesse and vitality to the limelight, publishing several books on Nepal’s antique art tradition, reminding and inspiring Nepali artists that they have a rich legacy to build on. And “her sudden demise,” according to Lok Chitrakar, “leaves a giant void in Nepali arts. A loss that is irreplaceable.”