SARATOGA SPRINGS — An innovative collaboration among three prominent college art museums has resulted in the joint acquisition of an extraordinary gift of Tibetan art from the Jack Shear Collection.
Ian Berry of the Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College, T. Barton Thurber of the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center at Vassar College, and Pamela Franks of the Williams College Museum of Art (WCMA) announced the gift, which includes an array of visually stunning thangka paintings. Each institution has acquired a third of the more than 60 objects, and the collection will be considered a shared whole, accessible to all partners, and providing a rich source of ongoing collaborations including coursework, publications, and exhibitions.
Earlier this month, an inaugural exhibition of the gift, Mastery and Merit: Tibetan Art from the Jack Shear Collection, opened at the Loeb Center at Vassar College.
Subsequent presentations at WCMA and at the Tang Museum are planned for the spring 2023 and fall 2023 semesters respectively.
The traditional Tibetan paintings are used as instructional and devotional objects, with Buddhist imagery painted on cloth and typically covered by a curtain of fabric and rolled for storage when not in use. Vivid illustrations on the front of the scrolls are complemented by detailed inscriptions on the reverse. For many centuries thangka paintings have been displayed during rituals and at certain times of year in monasteries, local shrines, and households, as objects of veneration, tokens of blessing, guides for meditation, and tools for teaching and learning.
The thangka span several centuries (likely 18th–20th) and feature colorful, often elaborate depictions of Buddhist scenes, deities, and mandala. There are scenes from the lives of the Shakyamuni Buddha, various incarnations of the Dalai Lamas, and Avadana teaching stories. In addition to the paintings, the Jack Shear Collection of Tibetan Art features related objects such as divination mirrors, a personal shrine, and initiation cards or tsakli—painted images used in ritualized meditation practice.
