One Artist's Quest for Shangri-La

In the 1920s, the Russian-born artist and scholar Nicholas Roerich (1874–1947) led a mysterious expedition across some of the world’s most forbidding terrain. His purpose, he announced, was to document the rituals, monuments, and landscapes of Asia’s remote reaches. But he harbored a secret motivation.

An age-old legend in the Buddhist and Hindu traditions speaks of a kingdom called Shambhala, also known as Shangri-La. Many Tibetan spiritual leaders have described Shambhala as an inner tantric state, but others have maintained that it has a physical presence on Earth. An intense and devoted mystic, Roerich believed that the discovery of Shambhala would awaken the Buddha of the future, who would guide the world through a purifying apocalypse and into a halcyon age of harmony.

The Nicholas Roerich Museum is a well-hidden gem in New York City, tasked with protecting and preserving Roerich’s legacy as a painter, first and foremost. Housed within a classic Upper West Side townhouse, more than 200 radiant paintings immortalize Roerich’s set designs for iconic ballets and operas, his visions of myths and deities, and his beloved Himalayas, which he went to great lengths and icy heights to behold.

Plan your visit to the Nicholas Roerich Museum: https://www.roerich.org/museum-about.php

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