Layla S. Diba is an independent art advisor, scholar and curator specializing in the art of 19th and 20th century Iran. She has been the Director and Chief Curator of the Negarestan Museum of 18th and 19th century Iranian Art in Tehran from 1975–78 and the Brooklyn Museum of Art’s Curator of Islamic Art from 1990-2000 where she organized the exhibition Royal Persian Paintings: The Qajar Epoch (1785–1925) and edited and coauthored the accompanying publication. In 2013 she cocurated the exhibition Iran Modern at Asia Society Museum in New York and coedited the accompanying catalogue. She has written widely on Persian and Islamic Art and her current projects include the publication of Art in Peril: The Case of the Negarestan Museum and its Collections of 18th and 19th century Iranian Art.