Gateway to Himalayan Art
In February 2026 the JSMA will present Gateway to Himalayan Art, a special exhibition featuring sublime religious art created from the 13th through the 21st centuries in Tibet, Nepal, China, and Mongolia, drawn from the permanent collection of the Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art, which organized the exhibition.
The exhibition introduces the main forms, concepts, meanings, and living traditions of Himalayan Buddhist art. It is part of the Rubin Museum’s Project Himalayan Art, a flagship educational initiative and resource that aims to support the inclusion of Tibetan, Himalayan, and Inner Asian art and cultures into undergraduate teaching on Asia as well as to present Himalayan art to the general public. Gateway to Himalayan Art serves as an entry point to the second and third integrated components of the Project—a publication and digital platform highlighting a thematic approach to teaching and engagement with objects.
At the start of the exhibition, a multimedia map orients visitors to the greater Himalayan region, which encompasses Indian, Nepalese, Bhutanese, and Tibetan cultures as well as interrelated Mongolian and Chinese traditions. Gateway to Himalayan Art invites exploration of these diverse cultural spheres through exemplary objects presented in three thematic sections: Symbols and Meanings, Materials and Technologies, and Living Practices. Traditional scroll paintings (thangkas), sculptures in various media, and ritual items comprise the diverse range of objects on view.
The Symbols and Meanings section of the exhibition juxtaposes paintings and sculptures to introduce the iconography of Buddhas and bodhisattvas; Tantric, female, and wrathful deities; Hindu gods and goddesses; and spiritually accomplished humans such as arhats, Mahasiddhas, and great religious teachers (lamas).
The Materials and Technologies section features in-depth displays detailing the making of a Tibetan thangka painting, the process of Nepalese lost-wax metal casting, the creation of clay, wood, and stone sculptures, and the fabrication of manuscripts and printed texts and images. It is augmented with artists’ tools and materials, and videos.
The section on Living Practices uses paintings, sculptures, ritual implements, and medical instruments to explore sacred rituals undertaken by Buddhists to accrue spiritual merit and achieve secular aims. It also introduces traditions of narrative and instructive Buddhist paintings and concludes with an elaborate wooden shrine housing sacred images, texts, and ritual objects to encourage visitors to consider the original context of the kinds of devotional art featured in the exhibition.
In addition to introducing an astonishing array of beautiful and meaningful works of art, Gateway to Himalayan Art includes informative videos explaining a variety of religious and cultural practices, audio recordings from Himalayan communities that highlight living traditions, and opportunities to dive deeper into the rich contextual material available on the Rubin’s integrated digital platform.
Although the show does not come with a printed catalogue, in 2023 the Rubin produced the authoritative publication Himalayan Art in 108 Objects, which provides useful background about many of the featured concepts.
In conjunction with the JSMA’s presentation of Gateway to Himalayan Art, the Rubin is generously lending two additional global contemporary works that reflect influence from traditional Himalayan Buddhist art to welcome visitors in the museum lobby.
The traveling exhibition Gateway to Himalayan Art was curated by Elena Pakhoutova, senior curator of Himalayan art at the Rubin Museum. The Rubin recently closed its New York space to become a “museum without walls,” sharing its collection and expertise through ambitious exhibitions, loans, and programs with the goal of encouraging further study of Himalayan art.
Gateway has already been shown at the Lehigh University Art Galleries in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and the McMullen Museum of Art at Boston College in 2023; the Harn Museum of Art at the University of Florida in Gainesville and the Frank Museum of Art at Otterbein University in Westerville, Ohio in 2024; and the Utah Museum of Fine Arts at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City and the Flaten Art Museum at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota in 2025. After it closes at the JSMA, it is slated to move on to the USC Pacific Asia Museum at the University of Southern California in Pasadena.
The JSMA showing of Gateway to Himalayan Art and its related programs were made possible with generous support from the Coeta and Donald Barker Changing Exhibitions Endowment, and JSMA members. We are deeply indebted to the Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art for sharing this very special project, which will broaden the representation of Asian art on display and support the teaching missions of both the JSMA and the University of Oregon.