Nicholas Roerich Museum in New York

10/17/2026

In “Tidings of the Eagle,” painted in 1927, Roerich gives us a glimpse of an inaccessible part of the mountains, where hermits live and meditate in the remote areas of the Himalayas. The mention of “tidings” in Roerich’s paintings is often connected with the expectations of the coming Maitreya. The eagle perched next to the hermit is a sacred bird, traditionally a guardian or solar figure. It’s also considered to be a messenger, like Garuda, the mythical bird in Buddhist mythology.

10/09/2026

Special event:
Presentation of the Interactive Map of the Roerichs’ Central Asian Expedition.
October 21, 2026, at 11 a.m. ET (New York time)
Presented by Alexander Titov (Moscow, Russia), lead developer of the project.
Introductory remarks by Gvido Trepsa, Executive Director of the Nicholas Roerich Museum
The presentation will be conducted in Russian and English.
A Zoom link will be provided before the event.

10/08/2026

Roerich’s “Tibet. Gelukpa Monastery” (1936) is one of many paintings he did of the monasteries he encountered during his travels. In his travel diaries, he wrote that “one must have a sense of beauty and of fearless self denial to build strongholds on such heights.” (“Heart of Asia”)⁠
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Roerich also write that in many of the monasteries, “long subterranean passages, leading to a river, were hewn in the rocks,” and that, not surprisingly, “this fairy-tale of subterranean passages, as we shall see, has created many of the best sagas.”⁠
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If you’d like to read more from “Heart of Asia,” please follow the link in our bio to our website, where you can find the full text and buy the book.⁠
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10/02/2026

Our next Concert is Friday October 9th! 6pm, doors open 5:30pm. Please register on our website Roerich.org for free tickets. 319 West 107th Street, New York, NY 10025.
Crystalline Chamber Collective: Steve Beck (Piano), Laura Sacks(Viola).

(Painting above) -
“Tibetan Stronghold (Basgo)” (1932) depicts a monastery Roerich encountered while he was traveling through Ladakh, India. In his diaries, Roerich noted that Basgo was situated on sharp cliffs and that “such a whimsical and variegated line, without any minuteness, is seldom seen.” (“Altai-Himalaya”)
That variegated line is part of what makes the monastery appear to be part of the natural landscape around it. The transition between cliff and monastery is subtle, even ambiguous in some places, as though the structure is truly assimilated into its surroundings.
Swipe right to see a photo of Basgo from the Roerich archive.
If you’d like to read more from “Altai-Himalaya,” please follow the link in our bio to our website, where you can find the full text and buy the book.

10/02/2026

10/02/2026

Sketch of Jelap-La Pass : 1924. The sketch belongs to Himalayan Leaves I, the group of observational drawings Roerich made during his first Himalayan period. Jelap-La (now commonly spelled Jelep La) is the high Himalayan pass on the historic route between Sikkim and Tibet. Contemporary accounts place its elevation at roughly 14,500 feet and describe it as part of the route from Sikkim into the Chumbi Valley and onward toward Phari in Tibet.
It is especially interesting because it belongs to a larger process: Roerich was studying the actual Himalayan landscape in drawings and then developing the subject into finished paintings.

However, in his travel diary Altai-Himalaya*, in the “Sikhim (1924)” section, Roerich does mention the pass itself in a single passage:
“To the side of the ascent, the summits merge into one implacable wall — the jagged, unending ridge of the Sacred Lizard. It is difficult to discern that just at that point are hidden the snowy summits of Jelep-la and Nathu-la on the way to Shigatse and Lhasa — the fog seems especially often to envelop this road.”
He then adds: “And again before us is the wall to Tibet. And not the backbone of the lizard but the snow-white girdle is outlined upon the peaks of this wall — the girdle of the earth.”

During his first years in the Himalayas, Roerich made numerous drawings recording the mountain landscape around Sikkim and the approaches to Tibet. This delicate pencil study depicts Jelap-La, a high mountain pass on the historic route between Sikkim and Tibet. Roerich’s handwritten notations and carefully observed overlapping ridges give the drawing the character of a visual travel record. He later included Jelap-La in his 1924 Tibetan Path series and painted another work titled Snows—Morning, Jelap-La. In notes associated with his works, Roerich succinctly described Jelap-La as the “pass to Tibet.”

Roerich “often returned to landscapes of visited places years later, using sketches and photographs made on-site,” and that “visits to places not named in the published travel diaries and letters have been identified.”

09/30/2026

Kiss to the Earth. 3rd Variant. Scenery Sketch for Stravinsky’s ballet Le Sacre du Printemps
1912
Watercolor, gouache/white pigment on paper

This 1912 work is closely connected to one of Nicholas Roerich’s most important theatrical collaborations: Igor Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring), first performed by Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes in Paris on May 29, 1913. Roerich was much more than the set designer—he collaborated on the ballet’s scenario and supplied its visual conception of prehistoric, pagan Russia. Scholars continue to discuss the precise division of credit between Roerich and Stravinsky for the original scenario.

The title “Kiss to the Earth” is significant because it refers to the first part of The Rite of Spring. The ballet was conceived as a sequence of rituals taking place in an imagined ancient Slavic world. Roerich described the first scene as occurring at the foot of a sacred hill, where clans gather to celebrate the arrival of spring. The climactic moment comes when the oldest and wisest elder approaches and gives a sacred kiss to the newly flowering earth.

09/25/2026

Padma Sambhava (1924) - created as painting number 17 in his Banners of the East series (1924–1925)

Roerich’s Banners of the East series portrayed great religious teachers and spiritual figures from different traditions, including Buddha, Christ, Mohammed, Moses, Confucius, and others. The Museum describes the series as a statement about the unity of religious striving and the common roots of faith.

Padma Sambhava, also known as Guru Rinpoche, is the great Buddhist teacher traditionally associated with the establishment of Buddhism in Tibet. Roerich was deeply interested in him because, when the Roerich family reached Sikkim at the end of 1923, they entered a region where traditions connected with Padma Sambhava were still very much alive.

Roerich wrote about Padma Sambhava many times. One source is Altai-Himalaya. Roerich recounts the traditional story that Padma Sambhava appeared as an eight-year-old child in a lotus, and that he did not die but departed to continue teaching elsewhere. He also records stories of sacred caves and sites associated with him.

One of the most remarkable passages describes Roerich viewing ancient paintings of Padmasambhava at the Monastery Daling, which directly informed his own painting:
“I look upon an ancient painting of the Monastery Daling. Here are the acts of the teacher, Padma Sambhava. All his forces are represented in action. Here is the teacher as a black-hatted lama with Solomon’s Star upon his headdress, striking a dragon. Here is the teacher summoning the rain. Here he saves a drowning one; he charms small evil spirits; weaponless, he conquers beasts and by a magic weapon he smites a tiger, first covering his head with the sacred triangle... No matter how clouded is his teaching now, its foundation still gleams through.”

09/25/2026

FALL HOURS Sat & Sun 12-5pm
Tues - Fri 12-4pm

CLOSED MONDAYS

Darjeeling, ca. September-October, 1928. Roerich arrived there after the completion of his Central Asian expedition, that started in August 1925 from Kashmir and finished in May 1928 in Darjeeling. His younger son Svetoslav, featured later in the episode, arrived in Darjeeling from Paris on August 20th.