Product Description

1950 Tibetan Refugee Painting

An extraordinary rare painting/applique of Tibetan life during the time of their exodus from Tibet. This painting is an early example as it is dated on the verso of c.1950 and would have been painted by an artist in the first wave of refugees to enter India. It is mixed media with use of Tibetan fabric applique, embroidery, and painting on stretched and lined burlap cloth.

Framed size is 41 x 29 inches.

Written on verso:

Tibetan refugees, Buddhist art

From Kalimpong, India

c. 1950

Dr. Clare Harris of University of Oxford:

?Perhaps the most significant thing about this piece is where it was made and when. You have a date of around 1950 which means it must have been made by one of the first wave of Tibetan refugees to enter India. Also if it is from Kalimpong, then I know that there was still a Tibetan Refugee Arts and Crafts centre there in the 1980s and people told me that it had been established for some time. Unfortunately, I do not have any further details about it to hand, though I think there was a "master painter" based there...

Re. the style: This kind of folksy style painting/applique has certainly been made in several Tibetan refugee communities in India and Nepal over the last few decades mainly as a fund raising exercise and for sale to foreigners. (Yours appears to be a particularly early example of this genre). The style and subject matter are often derived from the kinds of painting traditionally produced in Tibet for domestic wall paintings and furniture (rather than thangka painting
style/content). I would also add that the tone of your piece is (unsurprisingly) one of nostalgia for the familiar features of life back in Tibet - e.g. monastic practice and churning butter tea?.

Dr. Clare Harris

Reader in Visual Anthropology

Pitt Rivers Museum and School of Anthropology