NEWARK, NJ.- The Newark Museum celebrates a 100-year milestone in 2011, the formation and exhibition of its internationally acclaimed Tibetan collection. Since the first group of 150 objects was initially displayed in 1911, the Newark Museum has become steward of one of the foremost holdings of Tibetan art in the world. Today the collection numbers more than 5,500 objects ranging in date of origin from the eleventh to the twenty-first centuries. Beginning in March 2011, the Museum embarks on a nine-month Tibet Collection Centennial honoring Tibetan art, culture and history.

Celebration of the Tibet Collection Centennial at the Newark Museum coincides with the Tibetan New Year Festival of Losar.

Katherine Anne Paul, Ph.D., Curator of the Arts of Asia and curator of Tsongkhapa, will illuminate aspects of this fifteen-painting series during one of the Tibet Collection Lectures on Thursday, April 21 at 6 pm.

Tsongkhapa—The Life of a Tibetan Visionary showcases a rare complete set of fifteen thangka paintings that illustrate the biography of Tsongkhapa (1357–1419), founder of the Gelug religious order of Tibetan Buddhism (whose most renowned member is the Dalai Lama).Part of the Museum’s founding collection, this significant group of paintings is one of only three known complete sets in the world.

Five permanent galleries framing the Museum’s Tibetan Buddhist altar, consecrated by His Holiness, the 14th Dalai Lama in 1990, will be reinstalled for the Centennial. These are:

Chapel of the Masters features exquisite portraits of celebrated Indian and Tibetan scholars from the sixth century BC to the present day, depicted through gilded sculptures, colorful paintings, intricately carved book covers and rare historic photographs.

Chapel of the Fierce Protectors highlights specific protectors affiliated with Tibetan-Buddhist religious orders. Sculptures and paintings of these divine beings are accompanied by actual examples of the ritual implements they hold. These are also used to perform pacification rites (such as to cure illness or prevent disasters) and wealth- and luck-attracting ceremonies.

From the Sacred Realm: Paradises and Pure Lands focuses on paradise imagery illuminated through paintings and sculptures of longevity deities. Also illustrated are the Five Buddhas who head the Five Families under which the vast Buddhist pantheon is organized. They are seen in rare and precious works dating from ninth to eleventh-century India and Nepal up to nineteenth-century Mongolia and Tibet.

ABCs of Iconography: the Body, Speech and Mind of Buddhist Art explains an explicit body language of devotional postures (asana) and gestures (mudra) specific to peaceful and wrathful deities, illustrated through sculpture. The power of speech, even for the illiterate, is accessible through prayer stones, prayer wheels and book covers. A selection of rare stone and metal Buddhist reliquaries called stupa symbolize the mind.

Tiaras to Toe Rings, Asian Ornaments explores the dramatic effect of jewelry from the most basic to the most extraordinary ways that people dress themselves. How adornment reflects diverse cultural, geographic and economic environments will be showcased in bird feathers, ivories and gemstones.