Sheila S. Blair (born November 26, 1948) is a Canadian-born American art historian and educator. Blair has served as the dual Norma Jean Calderwood University Professor of Islamic and Asian Art at Boston College, along with her husband, Jonathan M. Bloom.
Career Blair received her Bachelor of Arts in Art History and Sociology from Tufts University in 1970. She then continued education by receiving a Doctor of Philosophy in Art History and Middle Eastern Studies from Harvard University in 1980, graduating in the same exact program as her husband, Jonathan M. Bloom, whom she married in that year. Blair's doctoral dissertation was titled "The Shrine Complex at Natanz, Iran."
Following graduation from Tufts, Blair took a one-year position as an instructor of sociology at Shiraz University. After receiving her doctoral degree, she and Bloom were named Aga Khan Lecturers on Islamic Art and Architecture at Harvard University and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology until 1981. In the following year, Blair was a lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania.
In 2000, Blair and Bloom were named to the dual professorship of Norma Jean Calderwood University Professor of Islamic and Asian Art at Boston College. In that same year, she served as the artistic consultant, with Bloom as principal consultant, for the documentary titled Islam: Empire of Faith. In 2006, they also began holding the joint post of Hamad bin Khalifa Endowed Chair of Islamic Art at Virginia Commonwealth University.
During the 2014-2015 academic year, Blair and Bloom held a research residency at the Shangri La Museum. The couple retired from teaching in 2018.
Bibliography Books authored The monumental inscriptions from early Islamic Iran and Transoxiana (1992) E.J. Brill (with Jonathan Bloom) The Art and Architecture of Islam, 1250–1800 (1994) Yale University Press A compendium of chronicles : Rashid al-Din's illustrated history of the world (1995) The Nour Foundation Islamic calligraphy (2006) Edinburgh University Press (with Linda Komaroff) Gifts of the Sultan : the arts of giving at the Islamic courts (2011) Yale University Press Text and image in medieval Persian art (2014) Edinburgh University Press
Books edited (with Jonathan Bloom and Sandra Williams) Iranian art from the Sasanians to the Islamic Republic : essays in honour of Linda Komaroff (2024) Edinburgh University Press
Along with Jonathan Bloom, Blair was also the editor for the proceedings of the Biennial Hamad bin Khalifa Symposium on Islamic Art and Culture, published by Yale University Press: Rivers of paradise : water in Islamic art and culture (2009) And Diverse are Their Hues: Color in Islamic Art and Culture (2011) God is beautiful and loves beauty : the object in Islamic art and culture (2013) God is the light of the heavens and the earth : light in Islamic art and culture (2015) By the pen and what they write : writing in Islamic art and culture (2017) Islamic art : past, present, future (2019)
Books in honour of Blair Robert Hillenbrand (Editor) The making of Islamic art : studies in honour of Sheila Blair and Jonathan Bloom (2021) Edinburgh University Press
See also List of Boston College people List of Harvard University people List of people from Montreal List of Tufts University people
References
External links Boston College profile