Mary Shepherd Slusser

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Slusser was born in Ontario, Canada in 1918 to George Percy and Ethel Mary Shepherd.^[2] In the year following her birth, her family moved to rural Michigan. Her mother hunted for food while her father worked in a machine shop. She developed an interest in archaeology as a young child when she and her sister, Dorothy, would play with souvenirs sent to their mother from around the world by her first husband, a British sailor. These souvenirs included Chinese ceramics, Japanese figurines made of ivory, an ebony elephant from India and a tiger skin, head included.^[3]

When Slusser was 17 years old, she became a naturalized citizen of the U.S. She attended the University of Michigan alongside her sister. Mary Shepherd Slusser met her future husband, Robert, a US Navy sailor while attending the University of Michigan. In 1942, she graduated with a bachelor's degree and moved to New York City, following her sister, who was enrolled in a graduate program at New York University's Institute of Fine Arts. In 1950, Slusser graduated with her PhD in anthropology from Columbia University. The title of her dissertation was "Preliminary archeological studies of Northern Central Chile" and she completed some of her coursework at both NYU and Harvard University.^[2]

After the completion of her PhD in 1950, Slusser worked for the U.S. State Department as a research analyst.^[2] Her work with the state department, from 1951- 1958, focused mainly on Latin America and Southeast Asia.^[4] During this time, her husband was working for the U.S. State Department as well, specifically as an economist with USAID. Eventually, his work took him overseas, and Slusser accompanied him on his travels.

The couple arrived in Nepal in 1965 and remained there for more than six years. At the request of the Department of Anthropology of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, Slusser assembled a small ethnographic collection from the Kathmandu Valley.^[5] Her research in Nepal subsequently developed into a broader study of the region's history, art, architecture, and cultural traditions, culminating in the publication of Nepal Mandala: A Cultural Study of the Kathmandu Valley in 1982.

Slusser continued to work in museums until retirement.^[2] This work included a three- year stint from 1975-1978 as curatorial assistant at the Museum of African Art, where she had previously and briefly worked in 1971, and a postdoctoral fellowship at the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery in 1989. While working on her fellowship, she was invited back to Kathmandu to supervise the creation of the Patan Museum, a museum devoted to the art of Nepal.^[4] Upon completion of her fellowship, Slusser was asked to stay with the museum. She maintained her position as an unpaid research associate for the remainder of her career.^[2]

Throughout her career, Slusser made many contributions to the understanding of Nepalese culture, history, language, and art. She has multiple published works which reflect her career including a two- volume set of text and images, mainly her own photographs from her time in Nepal, titled Nepal Mandala: A Cultural Study of Kathmandu Valley and a book, which she co- authored with Paul Jett, on Nepalese art titled The Antiquity of Nepalese Wood Carving: a Reassessment.^[2] Articles published by her alongside her co-authors include, "Metamorphosis: Sheet Metal to Sacred Image in Nepal", "The Nepalese Caitya: 1500 Years of Buddhist Votive Architecture in the Kathmandu Valley", "The Devimahatmya Paintings Preserved at the National Archives", "The Purandi Hoard: Metalwork from Eleventh-Century Nepal", "Water Conduits in the Kathmandu Valley".^[6]

While living in Nepal, Slusser collected Nepalese art and ethnographic objects. At the request of the Department of Anthropology of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History, she assembled a small ethnographic collection from the Kathmandu Valley.^[5] She and her husband, H. Robert Slusser, also privately acquired Nepalese artworks and religious objects. Some objects from their private collection were later donated to the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery. Smithsonian provenance records document, for example, a manuscript leaf purchased by the Slussers in Kathmandu in 1966 and donated to the gallery in 1991.^[7]

In September 2026, art historian Erin L. Thompson published an investigation in Himal Southasian examining Slusser's private collecting practices in Nepal. Drawing in part on Slusser's diaries and archival materials, Thompson reported that Slusser privately collected approximately 500 artifacts, many of them religious objects, and that she later sold or donated objects to museums in the United States.^[8]

Thompson's investigation described a December 1965 visit by Slusser and her husband to the Gokarneshwor Mahadev temple in the Kathmandu Valley. According to a diary entry cited by Thompson, boys at the temple offered the couple a small bronze image of Shiva and Parvati. Slusser wrote that she was "sure they had just stolen" the image and noted that grains of ritual rice remained attached to it. She nevertheless purchased the object after negotiating the price from 22 to 14 Nepalese rupees. Thompson cited the episode as evidence that Slusser knowingly acquired at least one object that she believed had been stolen from a religious site.^[8]

Smithsonian collection records independently document Nepalese objects formerly owned by the Slussers. Provenance records for some objects identify purchases made in Kathmandu,^[7] while records for other objects identify the Slussers as previous owners but list the method by which they acquired the objects as unknown.^[9]