Tibet's Riches on the West Coast: LACMA's Golden Age
From 1980 to 1992, Alexander Powell III (1943– ), an art historian, directed the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA); scholars regard that period as the museum's "golden age." According to Powell III, Asian art in its broadest sense was becoming central to art historical research through new forms, as innovative ideas and unconventional viewpoints continually enabled scholars to perceive the social environments and artistic traditions of Asia's classical era.
As the largest art museum on the West Coast, LACMA contains nearly 400 masterpieces linked to the 'Himalayan-Tibetan' cultural sphere, usually classified within the 'South and Southeast Asian Art' collection (Building 5, Fourth Floor). Powell III's passion for American landscape painting also directed his attention to the various forms of landscape (or mountain-water) paintings in Asian art.
Beginning in the 1980s, the Asian art boom—the third major collecting wave—pulled many West Coast collecting families toward LACMA. In 1961, the original Los Angeles Museum of History, Science, and Art had been split into the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, also known as LACMA. These donors gave the museum a substantial array of Tibetan-related artifacts, with nearly 14 core donor families, and financed specialized research institutions for art scholars and enthusiasts around the world.
In 1984, the collection catalog for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, covering the "Himalayan-Tibetan" cultural sphere, was authored by art historian Pratapaditya Pal (1935– ). Lingrepa Pema Dorje (གླིང་རལ་པ་པད་མ་རྡོ་རྗེ་; 1128–1188), the founding master of the Drukpa Kagyu School, appears in the guise of a white-robed yogi, and certain texts attribute to him an "arhat-like appearance.
LACMA's core research themes in the history of Himalayan art were restated by director Alexander Powell III and Pratapaditya Pal in their foreword: these encompassed traditions of portraiture (including sacred iconography) and the intricate layers between 'sacred and secular'—for instance, how ethnic groups and social classes interacted. Such scholarly objectives were intended to counter popular misunderstandings of Himalayan art, especially the belief that Tibetan Buddhist art never contributed to realism or depictions of daily life.
Portraying a subject's unique personality and individual achievements while also mirroring them in outward appearance poses a far greater challenge than the simple, idealized images typically used to represent figures. In depictions of divine realms, however, sages' faces appear with remarkable precision, since their recorded words and biographies are preserved and given shape through tangible media. "This is a unique testament to the unity of flesh and spirit.
Artists working only a hundred (or even fifty) years after their subjects' lifetimes faced the same near-impossibility we encounter today in trying to ascertain the physical features of sages from centuries ago. A structured descriptive framework, with many remarkable details, is supplied by Tibet's rich biographical literature, and the personal memories of disciples and devotees were also integrated into portrait-making.
In Tibetan portraiture traditions, the central subject matter consists of "lineage transmission" and "canonical events," which are thought to link to a structured form of presence—the various identities that a figure could assume.
This piece, translated from SuolangWangqing's blog, was likely made after 1705, subsequent to the birth of Sonam Rinchen (བསོད་ནམས་རིན་ཆེན་; 1705-1741). At the center top is Kunga Tashi (ཀུན་དགའ་བཀྲ་ཤིས་; 1656-1711), the 29th Sakya Trizin of the Sakya School (Term: 1685-1711). On the left is Kunga Wangchuk (ཀུན་དགའ་དབང་ཕྱུག་; 1424-1478), the 4th Throne Holder of Ngor Monastery (Term: 1465-1478). On the right is Gorampa Sönam Sengge (གོ་རམས་པ་བསོད་ནམས་སེང་གེ་; 1429-1489), the 6th Throne Holder of Ngor Monastery (Term: 1483-1486).