Abstract: Namkha Tashi #4
Sichuan Abstracts | Karma Kagyu Lineage (Namkha Tashi)Abstract #4: A New Discovery, Paintings Attributed to the Artist Namkha Tashi
Sichuan University, October 27th, 2026
The Tibetan artist Namkha Tashi is quite famous and known from historical and biographical literature. He's believed to be a painter of the 16th century and associated with the Karma Gar tent encampment of the Karmapa teachers of the Kamtsang Tradition of Tibet.
There is a lot of discussion about Namkha Tashi and about whether he had a distinctive style of his own. There's always been confusion in Tibetan texts between the words "style" and "tradition" with many individuals believing that there is a distinctive unique style developed by Namkha Tashi that has continued through time down to the present.
At various times, people have claimed that certain paintings are in the style of Namkha Tashi and known as Karma Gari style (sometimes mispronounced as Karma Gardri), although without being able to really say what the characteristics of the style are. There are also claims that certain murals at Karma Gon Monastery were painted by Namkha Tashi. Those mural paintings have generally been dismissed as being of a generally poor quality and not of any type of high-quality aesthetic art.
Recently, some paintings have come to light that were discovered in the monastery of Tashi Gepel in Central Tibet. The paintings are scroll work rather than murals and attributed to Namkha Tashi. This claim is the closest we've actually come to finding paintings that could possibly be by the artist Namkha Tashi.
In this presentation we will look at these newly discovered paintings, discuss them, and compare them with other famous painting styles of the time to determine what might be the style or the source and influences of a style, and what we think are the dominant characteristics of the paintings claimed to be by the hand of Namkha Tashi.
Study Topics:
- Literary & Oral History
- Karma Gari Painting
- Difference Between Traditions & Styles
- Painting Examples
- Characteristics
Jeff Watt, 10-2026
(The images below are only a selection of examples from the links above).
