Himalayan Art Resources

Collection of Rubin Museum of Art: Info

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The Rubin Museum of Art (RMA), New York, is among the top five museums in the world for Himalayan art. It has one of the finest collections found anywhere. In North America and Europe there are only a handful of museums with the same quality, depth of collection, and breadth of objects as the Rubin Museum (see website). In the early years the Rubin collection, prior to the Rubin Museum, was driven primarily by personal interest and taste. From 1999 to the present the collection was and continues to be curated and shaped to be inclusive of the different Himalayan regions and the various mediums for art with a special focus on fine art such as painting and sculpture.

The top five museums in the world & comparable to the RMA are:
- Los Angeles County Museum
- Asian Art Museum, San Francisco
- Guimet Musee National, Paris, France
- Museum of Culture, Basel, Switzerland
- Rubin Museum of Art

In New Delhi, India, the Tibet House Museum has a comparable but smaller collection focusing on Tibetan art. In Ulan Bator, Mongolia, the Zanabazar Museum has a large collection, but again focusing primarily on Mongolian created art. Other museums are certainly very fine and have great objects such as the Cleveland Museum of Art, MFA Boston, the Hermitage in St. Petersburg but these museums do not have the breadth and depth, and they lack the range that characterises the RMA collection, and the other top collections listed above.

The Rubin Museum of Art can also be credited with being the most documented and published collection of Himalayan art among all of the museum and private collections anywhere in the world. This is due both to an early and active publishing agenda along with the generous and free use of images for second and third party publications, book covers and educational use.

Recent Exhibitions:
- Awaken: A Tibetan Buddhist Journey Toward Enlightenment!
- Treasures from the Zhiguan Museum of Art
- Faith & Empire: Art & Politics in Tibetan Buddhism
- Rubin Museum Masterworks

Jeff Watt, [updated 10-2014, 12-2018, 9-2019]

Database Search: All RMA Images | Painting | Sculpture | Mandala

(The images below are only a selection from the RMA Masterworks Page).

*** The Himalayan Art Resources website cannot confirm or guarantee that all or any of these objects currently reside or still remain within the museum collection. Accession numbers and cataloguing information may be incomplete or outdated. ***