Ruth Barnes

Ruth Barnes is the inaugural Thomas Jaffe Curator of Indo-Pacific Art, and a member of the Council on Southeast Asia Studies. She received her doctorate from Oxford University and was previously textile curator at the Ashmolean Museum, where she organized exhibitions on Asian and Islamic textiles, early Indian Ocean trade, and the theme of pilgrimage. She was also curator of three new permanent-collection galleries for the Ashmolean’s reopening in 2009. Her publications include The Ikat Textiles of Lamalera and Indian Block-Printed Textiles in Egypt: The Newberry Collection in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Her most recent book, Five Centuries of Indonesian Textiles, co-edited with Mary Kahlenberg, received the R. L. Shep Award in 2010