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VMFA is home to one of America’s premier collections of Greater Indian and Himalayan art, featuring spectacular examples of sculpture, paintings, architecture, textiles, and decorative art.
Search This CollectionThis collection showcases the diversity of regional cultures and religious traditions that have defined the Indian subcontinent’s artistic production over more than 3000 years. From sublime sculptures and stunning paintings, to opulent textiles and glittering decorative arts, it is filled with masterpieces that both delight and educate.
The arts of Nepal and Tibet are represented through an impressive assemblage of paintings, sculptures, book arts, textiles, and ritual objects spanning nearly eight centuries. Most of these artworks relate to the region’s dominant religious traditions, Buddhism and Hinduism, both of which came to the Himalayas from India.
An avatar of the Hindu deity Vishnu, Krishna descended to Earth to kill the evil king Kansa. Indian literature and art is filled with depictions of his mischievous youth, heroic encounters with demons, and romantic dalliances that are metaphors for his devotees’ emotional relationships with God. Blue skinned, usually in a saffron-colored loincloth and a peacock-feather crown, the young lord often carries a flute that, when played, enchants all who hear it.
An avatar of the Hindu deity Vishnu, Krishna descended to Earth to kill the evil king Kansa. Indian literature and art is filled with depictions of his mischievous youth, heroic encounters with demons, and romantic dalliances that are metaphors for his devotees’ emotional relationships with God. Blue skinned, usually in a saffron-colored loincloth and a peacock-feather crown, the young lord often carries a flute that, when played, enchants all who hear it.
On view in the South Asian Galleries is Tsherin Sherpa: Local Spirits, featuring three works from the 2022 exhibition, Tsherin Sherpa: Spirits and several additional paintings from private collections. All these works now reside in Richmond, giving the installation its title: Local Spirits. Like Sherpa’s many Spirit characters now scattered across the world, they have found new homes to watch over, their potency undiminished.
Enriching the presentation are traditional scroll paintings made by Sherpa before he launched his contemporary career, a masterpiece by his father and teacher, and a handful of other resonant objects from VMFA’s collection.
Himalayan Spirits, 2021, Tsherin Sherpa (American, born Nepal, 1968), gold, acrylic, and ink on canvas. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Arthur and Margaret Glasgow Endowment and the following, by exchange: Nasli and Alice Heeramaneck Collection, Gift of Paul Mellon; Gift of Miss Frances Leigh Williams in memory of her brother, Archer Anderson Williams; Gift of the Estate of Mrs. Mary Safford Hoogewerff; and Gift of Mr. George P. Bickford, 2022.74a–d Indian music and paintings fill two of the South Asian galleries. The paintings come from ragamalas, sets of pictures that depict musical structures called ragas. Every raga has a characteristic progression of musical notes intended—as the Sanskrit word raga suggests—to ‘color’ the mind and stimulate a distinct emotional response.
Ragamala paintings, in which these musical moods are personified as heroes and heroines in romantic or devotional settings, are organized into groups imagined as families. Typically, a full ragamala series presents a grand cycle of six such families, each associated with one of India’s six seasons.
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Khambhavati Ragini (detail), mid-17th century, Rajasthan, Bikaner, opaque watercolor on paper. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Arthur and Margaret Glasgow Endowment, 2018.193 
