Collecting Kashmir: Buddhist Art in the Western Himalayas and St. Louis

The annual Nelson I Wu Lecture on Asian Art and Culture honors the memory of the late Dr. Wu and is jointly sponsored by the Saint Louis Art Museum and Washington University in St. Louis. The elegant, cosmopolitan arts of Kashmir inspired Buddhists and artists in Western Tibet to acquire, revere, preserve, and imitate them. Eventually the imported Kashmiri style became integrated into the cultural identity of Western Tibetan Buddhists as their own signature mode of art-making. The valuable and distinctive workmanship of Kashmiri artists in brass, silver, gold, wood, and ivory, and the detailed painted illuminations of Buddhist deities continue to be prized by collectors and museums alike. This lecture will look at the different forms of "collecting" Kashmiri Buddhist art through the centuries.

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