Dr Alka Pande is an art historian who taught Art History at Panjab University for more than two decades. She has also taught Art and Aesthetics at the Delhi College of Art, NID and the DJ Academy of Design, Coimbatore. Her major fields of interest are gender identity and sexuality, and traditional arts. Dr Pande, under the aegis of the Charles Wallace India Trust, conducted postdoctoral research in critical art theory at Goldsmiths, University of London.
In 2006, she was awarded the Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters- an honour bequeathed by the French government to recognize significant contributions in the fields of art and literature. In 2009, she received the Australian-India Council Special Award for her contribution to Indian art. In 2015, she was awarded L’Oreal Paris Femina Women under Design and Arts and Chandigarh Lalit Kala Akademi honours-in recognition of her distinguished contribution to art- with Amrita Sher-Gil Samman. In 2023, she was awarded as the Culture Champion and Women of the Year by She Inspires Awards and CIMA Lifetime Achievement Award for her contribution in the field of Indian art. In 2025 she received the Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government.
She has been passionately involved with the world of art for more than three decades. She has been responsible for curating several significant and perceptive exhibitions in India and abroad. Dr Pande was the artistic director of photography biennale Habitat Photosphere, a photography award instituted by India Habitat Centre. Her curatorial projects include the exhibitions, The Tree from the Seed at the Henie-Onstad Art Centre, Oslo; India Awakens Under the Banyan Tree at the Essl Museum, Vienna; and The Kama Sutra: Spirituality and Eroticism in Indian Art at the Pinacotheque, Paris, to name a few. Dr. Alka Pande also curated 'Jana Shakti – Collective Power’, an exhibition by eminent modern and contemporary artists from India at National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi in 2023.
She has extensively written and edited books on Indian aesthetics, culture and photography. Dr Pande has published a set of 14 books on Indian culture especially focused on Indian arts and aesthetics called the 108 Portraits series (2024). These include the folk and tribal, crafts, textiles, music, objects, dance, food, traditional art, architecture, sculpture, modern and contemporary art, photography, printmaking and design.
Dr Pande is responsible for setting-up museums: Divine Gesture, Udaipur City Palace, Kanha Museum, Singinawa and Ganga Gallery at Patna Museum. She is on the advisory of the Bihar Museum. Dr Pande was the chief curator at the Bihar Museum Biennale in 2021 and 2023. She is the Academic Director and Editor for the Third Bihar Museum Biennale 2025.
Currently, Dr Pande is a consultant art advisor and curator of the Visual Arts Gallery at the India Habitat Centre in New Delhi (India).
