In the early 1980s, when few South Asian art historians thought seriously about art of the colonial period or beyond, Marcella Sirhandi chose Abdur Rahman Chughtai, a modern South Asian artist, for her PhD dissertation at The Ohio State University. That research required an investigation of art from Iran, Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh from the Mughal Period to 1975. Thereafter, Dr. Sirhandi published extensively on modern and contemporary Indian and Pakistani art. Contemporary Painting in Pakistan, her first book, published in 1992, was followed by book length catalogs for exhibitions on contemporary Pakistani painting and on modern Indian art. Among these are catalogs on Calcutta artist Jamini Roy for the Harn Museum, University of Florida, Gainesville and Goan painter Antonio Xavier Trindade for the University of Georgia Museum of Art.

Dr. Sirhandi co-edited the College Art Association’s Art Journal issue on “Contemporary Indian Art” and contributed the essay “Manipulating Cultural Idioms”. Dr. Sirhandi has also published journal articles on South Asian art in Arts of Asia, Arts and the Islamic World, Libas International, and Eastern Art Report. She recently completed a book on revered Pakistan artist Lubna Agha as well as the major catalog essay for Modern Indian Works on Paper, an exhibition that will travel to a number of American museums starting summer 2006. In 2000, on a second Fulbright grant to Pakistan, Dr. Sirhandi joined a small team to compose the MA Fine Arts Program at the National College of Arts (NCA) in Lahore, Pakistan. She also created and taught the South Asian art history segment for the MA program.

Her current passion is the new miniature painting by faculty and graduates from the NCA. In 1996, she collaborated with ustad (master) Bashir Ahmed at Oklahoma State University in a studio/art history course on miniature painting: The course was repeated at OSU, in 2005 in conjunction with an exhibition of the New Miniature painting from Pakistan. Dr. Sirhandi is currently writing a book on the New Miniature Painting in Pakistan.