Stephen P. Huyler is an art historian, cultural anthropologist, photographer and author conducting a lifelong survey of India's art and crafts and their meanings within rural societies. He has part of each of the last thirty-eight years traveling in Indian villages documenting craftsmanship and contemporary traditions. After focusing on ritual Hinduism for the past decade, he has recently returned to his original passion: women's art and identity in India. Huyler received his B.A. in Indian Studies at the University of Denver and then his doctorate at the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies.

In 1985, Dr. Huyler published "Village India" with Abrams (NY), the first and, as yet, only book that surveys rural Indian life and cultures throughout the subcontinent. His second book, "Painted Prayers: Women's Art in Village India" documents women's ritual wall and floor decoration, and was published by Rizzoli International in 1994, as well as in British, French, and German editions. Based upon interviews with hundreds of Indian women, it portrays how the women of India create sacred art as a means to bring balance into their lives. Huyler's third book, drawn from his thesis and entitled: "Gifts of Earth: Terracottas and Clay Sculptures of India" was released in India in 1996 by Mapin Press, Ahmedabad. It is to date the most intensive cross-cultural survey of the Indian potters' and clay sculptors' craft. His fourth book, "Meeting God: Elements of Hindu Devotion" (Yale), has been acclaimed widely as the best current introduction to practical Hinduism, a religion that accounts for one in five human beings. "Daughters of India: Art and Identity" (Abbeville, NY) has received high acclaim in journals and by feminists across the world. It profiles twenty women drawn from as many regions and facets of India culture as possible and explores the remarkable creative spirit expressed by these individuals, many of whom daily face adverse conditions. Huyler's newest book,"Sonabai: Another Way of Seeing", has just been released and includes a DVD with a documentary film. It profiles a phenomenal story of one woman's creative vision in the face of oppressive adversity.

Stephen Huyler has served as a consultant and/or curator for 27 museum exhibitions about India. Several of those shows have been collections of Indian art. He co-curated an exhibition about sacred rituals in India entitled "Puja: Expressions of Hindu Devotion" which opened at the Smithsonian Institution's Sackler Gallery in Washington D.C in 1996 and ran for over four years, closing in the summer of 2000. Huyler has also had many museum exhibitions of his photographs. Because of the great popularity of his Smithsonian exhibition, he curated a traveling show comprised of photographs and interactive wooden shrines entitled "Meeting God: Elements of Hindu Devotion" that traveled through US, India and the UK. Its largest incarnation was at the American Museum of Natural History in New York from September 2001, until April 2002.

Huyler's innovative new exhibition, "Sonabai: Another Way of Seeing" is the result of five years of planning, design and collecting.This exhibition will run from July 25, 2009 until September 5, 2010 at the Mingei International Museum in San Diego.

Dr. Huyler divides his time in the United States between Camden, Maine and Ojai, California, although he spends time each winter conducting field research in India and during the rest of the year frequently travels to lecture at universities and museums in the U.S. and the U.K.