Cold War Art Worlds: South Asian Art and Artists in Prague, 1947-1989

By Simone Wille

Prague as a vital Cold War hub for South Asian artists

During the Cold War, the Central-European capital of Prague, alongside other locations in the polarized post-war world, emerged as a key site where an art world of particular importance for artists from South Asia developed. By emphasizing cultural mobility as a catalyst for exchange and network building, this book challenges and complicates assumptions about Cold War binaries of East and West and the polarization between so-called totalitarian regimes and free cultures. Positioning Prague as a nexus where South-Asian modernisms intersected with multiple peoples, histories, and ideologies in the post-World War II era, it offers a narrative of decolonization that rejected rigid systemic alignment in favor of participation across blocs by prioritizing migratory aesthetics over nationalist parochialism. Well-researched and rich in archival materials, this book proposes new ways of writing art histories and makes a significant contribution to both Cold War studies and critical global modernism studies.

Ebook available in Open Access.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 9462704708
• ISBN13: 9789462704701
• Release Date: October 2025
• Publisher: Leuven University Press
• Length: 320 Pages
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher