January 16 – April 19, 2026
Oneself & Cherished Traditions: Featuring Uuriintuya Dagvasambuu with Selections from the Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art, Sapar Contemporary and OUMA
Uuriintuya Dagvasambuu (born 1979), A travel diary from the Oglethorpe virtual tour, 2025, acrylic on canvas, Museum Purchase, Collection of Oglethorpe University Museum of Art, 2025.02.01
Oglethorpe University Museum of Art (OUMA) starts the year with a remarkable collaboration with two New York City institutions: Sapar Contemporary Gallery and the Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art. Oneself & Cherished Traditions features traditional scrolls and other objects from Mongolia, Nepal, and Tibet, contemporary painting by celebrated Mongolian painter Uuriintuya Dagvasambuu, and objects from OUMA’s own collection of art of Asia. This exhibition features a specially commissioned new painting by Uuriintuya Dagvasambuu for the OUMA permanent collection. The commission was made possible through a generous donation from longtime OUMA supporter Richard King.
School of Hishikawa Moronobu, (Japanese,1618-1694) Attributed to Hishikawa Moroshige, Figures Playing Sugoroku (Backgammon), Edo period (1615-1868) ca. 1690-1695, Fragment of a hand scroll mounted as a hanging scroll, painted in ink, colors, and gold on silk, Acquired in memory of Professor Robert Steen, Professor of Japanese Languages Collection of Oglethorpe University Museum of Art
The Rubin Museum’s holdings are based on the collection of its founders, Shelley and Donald Rubin, who started collecting Himalayan art in the 1970s, primarily in the United States as well as through some international galleries and auction houses. The Shelley and Donald Rubin Exhibition Series was established in 2013 through a generous gift from Shelley and Donald J. Rubin, a 1956 Oglethorpe alumnus, to support exhibitions at OUMA, as well as arts-related curricular programs complementing each exhibition of the series.
The Rubin is a global museum dedicated to presenting Himalayan art and its insights. Founded in 2004, the Rubin serves people internationally through exhibitions, participatory experiences, a dynamic digital platform and partnerships. Inspired and informed by Himalayan art, the Rubin invites people to contemplate the human experience and deepen connections with the world around them in order to expand awareness, enhance well-being and cultivate compassion. The Rubin advances scholarship through a series of educational initiatives, collection sharing, grants and the stewardship of a collection of nearly 4,000 Himalayan art objects spanning 1,500 years of history. It provides unprecedented access and resources to scholars, artists and students across the globe.
Sapar Contemporary Gallery was founded by Raushan Sapar and Nina Levent. The gallery opened a ground floor space in Tribeca in spring 2016. Sapar works with international artists who span three generations and five continents. They engage in global conversations and develop vocabularies that resonate as strongly in Baku, Almaty and Istanbul as they do in New York, Berlin, Kiev and Mexico City. Their artistic practices vary from meditative traditional ink painting to writing programming code; what connects them are the artists’ capacity for empathy, insight, and imagination, their whimsy and generosity of spirit, as well as the rigor and depth of their studio practice.
Oglethorpe University Museum of Art acknowledges with gratitude the curatorial collaboration of Elena Pakhoutova, Ph.D., Senior Curator, Himalayan Art, Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art; Nina Levent, Ph.D., of Sapar Contemporary; John Daniel Tilford, Curatorial Advisor for OUMA.