Goddesses of the Celestial Gallery

In the tradition of Celestial Gallery, this unique collection of striking Tibetan-style thangka paintings of the Goddesses of the Celestial Gallery are presented together for the first time, in this book-shelf sized format. Reproduced from the master painter Romio Shrestha and his team of artisan monks, who render postmodern interpretations of an age-old Tibetan artistic tradition. Made from malachite, lapis and marigolds and painted at times with just three hairs of a cat's tail, these paintings are produced in hauntingly powerful detail.

Goddesses depicted include: "the goddesses of the arts" Saraswati; "the Divine Mother" White Tara a protector and preserver; "the Protectress " Green Tara : "the Dark Goddesses" Palden Lhamo, guardian of the lineage of the Dalai Lamas; and Kali, a wild and uncontrollable consort of Shiva, a devotee of time and keeper of the shadows within ourselves.

Romio Bahadur Shrestha was born into a Newar family in Katmandu in Nepal. When he was five years old, two Tibetan Buddhist monks arrived at his door. They said, was the seventeenth reincarnation of the master Tibetan T’angka painter Arniko and they gave to him a stock of valuable art materials, explaining that he would, one day, form his own school of painting.

Romio Shrestha is a modern master of the Indo-Nepali-Tibetan Buddhist traditions of enlightenment art. Shrestha’s T’angka’s can be found in many of the great collections of the world including the British Museum, The Victoria Albert Museum, The Buchheim Museum, American Museum of Natural History New York, Newark Museum New Jersey, National Museum Moscow, The Chester Beatty Library Dublin, The Voelkerkunde Museum Zurich as well as many private collections around the globe.

Preserving and innovating the ancient wisdom and traditional craftsmanship, Shrestha founded the foremost art school in Nepal in 1968, and now into the 21st century he continues to bring the world of T’angka on into the future.