Our Story

The Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art (formerly Rubin Museum of Art) was founded in 2004 as a haven for Himalayan art in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York City by Shelley and Donald Rubin, who are philanthropists, cultural leaders, and collectors. The opening was the culmination of 30 years of art collecting, six years of planning, and the purchase and renovation of the former Barney’s department store at 150 West 17th Street in Manhattan. This new not-for-profit museum dedicated to Himalayan art was the first of its kind in the United States.  

The Museum’s galleries were accompanied by a theater, shop, and Café Serai, and later an education center was built with classrooms and studios. Over time the Rubin expanded resources for families, teens, and K–12 and university students. From the start, the Rubin showcased artworks that had yet to be thoroughly studied outside of the greater Himalayan region, presented bold, experiential programs that engaged leading thinkers and artists across disciplines, and inspired dialogue and personal connections to the ideas inherent in the art. 

The Museum on 17th Street became a beloved and well-respected cultural landmark, deemed “one of the biggest thinking small museums in all of Manhattan” by the New York Times. Over the course of two decades the Rubin welcomed over 2.5 million visitors, presented over 145 exhibitions, hosted over 6,500 programs, and published 35 scholarly publications.

Beginning in 2022 the Rubin expanded our reach with projects beyond the Museum walls, with the inaugural Nepal Pavilion at the Venice Biennale; a traveling version of the interactive Mandala Lab installation in Europe; the support of the Itumbaha Museum, a new museum at a Newar Buddhist monastery in Kathmandu, Nepal; and the launch of Project Himalayan Art, the organization’s biggest institutional project serving students, educators, and scholars nationally and beyond. These initiatives piloted new ways of fulfilling the Museum’s mission and connecting with audiences across the world.

Building on the successes of these projects and in the same spirit of innovation, after 20 years, on October 6, 2024, the Rubin closed the physical location on 17th Street to embark on our next chapter as a global museum.

Today the Rubin continues to be the leading presenter of Himalayan art, with exhibitions, participatory experiences, educational initiatives, and research, serving more people than before through collaborations and partnerships, digital technologies, and collection sharing.

Shelley Frost Rubin and Donald Rubin are philanthropists and cultural leaders who are recognized for their initiatives to expand public access to the arts and foster understanding among people through meaningful interactions with and connections to art. Through exhibitions and strong partnerships, they believe that art has the potential to change the status quo. 

Shelley and Donald began collecting Himalayan art in the mid-1970s when a painting in the window of an art gallery drew them in. It was a thangka, a Tibetan painting on cloth, depicting White Tara, the Buddhist deity of longevity. They fell in love and purchased it, later returning to the same gallery to acquire a second thangka. Over the ensuing decades, their collection grew in depth and scope. In time, they became more aware that they had become stewards of the material culture of a people in diaspora and felt a responsibility to preserve and share these works of art with a wider public.

In 1995 they established the Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation to support arts and cultural organizations through grants that provide opportunities for creative engagement with issues that affect all members of society, particularly underserved communities. Two initiatives, Treasury of Lives and Himalayan Art Resources, have become indispensable tools for students, scholars, and others interested in knowing more about the history and art of the greater Himalayan region.

In 1998 they purchased a building to house their collection of Himalayan art, and in 2004, the Rubin Museum of Art opened in Chelsea, providing space for exhibitions, educational programs, and cultural experiences.

In addition to founding the Rubin Museum of Art in 2004, in 2010 the Rubins established The 8th Floor, an interdisciplinary exhibition and event space to promote artistic, cultural, and philanthropic initiatives. The following year, Shelley Rubin founded A Blade of Grass, the first grant-making nonprofit solely dedicated to nurturing socially engaged art. She is an emeritus board member of Human Rights Watch and WNET, while also having served on the boards of the Interfaith Center of New York and the Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center. She currently serves as the board chair of the Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art and the Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation. The Rubins have been honored with numerous awards for their contributions to the artistic and cultural life of New York.

The Rubin first opened with an initial gift of more than 1,000 objects from Shelley and Donald Rubin’s personal collection of Himalayan art established over the course of three decades. Along with purchases and additional gifts from the founders and other donors, the Museum’s preeminent collection today includes nearly 4,000 objects. The collection features works of great artistic and historical significance that span more than 1,500 years to the present day. Included are works from the Tibetan Plateau, with examples from Northern Indian, Nepalese, Bhutanese, Mongolian, and Chinese culturally related areas.

Learn more about the collection

The Rubin’s exhibition program draws on the collection and important loans from around the globe to present artworks from Tibetan, Himalayan, and Inner Asian regions in their cultural context, highlighting the continued importance, impact, and relevance of this art today. Since the Museum’s founding on October 2, 2004, in New York City, the Rubin has presented over 145 exhibitions, from scholarly to popular, including historical, cross-cultural, contemporary, photography, and interactive installations. Accompanying publications  have become essential resources for art historians, scholars, students, and enthusiasts of Himalayan art.

Covering a broad thematic range, Rubin exhibitions promote greater understanding of rich artistic traditions and Himalayan cultural heritage, including the diverse religious traditions of Tibetan Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, and Bon, Tibet’s indigenous religion. Many of the Museum’s exhibitions break new ground through research and fresh perspectives in this still-developing field. They are also known for their engaging presentations of complex religious, philosophical, and historical subjects made accessible through addressing universal issues, such as power, death, medicine, time, cosmology, and the environment. Some explore fundamental, tradition-centered concepts such as ritual, mandalas, and visualization, and many examine Himalayan narratives, artistic practices, and living traditions, which are essential for the appreciation of Himalayan art.

Looking beyond the walls of the Museum, the Rubin continues to curate exhibitions nationally and around the world often in partnership with other artists and institutions. Exhibitions draw on the art from the collection to provide a broader understanding of Himalayan art for diverse audiences.

The Rubin organized more than 6,500 programs at the 150 West 17th Street location that provided an outlet for personal exploration, in-depth discussion, and life-long learning. Lectures, conversations, film screenings, workshops, weekly meditations, and musical performances often brought together seemingly unrelated themes to exemplify the universality of ideas expressed in the Museum’s exhibitions and collection. The celebrated annual Brainwave series, which elevated the art of conversation in unscripted onstage engagements between strangers, paired scientists with guests from all walks of life to reflect on the interplay of science and the brain with Himalayan art and culture. Notable repeat immersive experiences included the ambitious Dream-Over, which invited visitors to spend the night at the Museum; the Memory Palace, which trained visitors in mnemonic techniques; and the Game of Life, which turned the whole Museum into a contemplative and educational game of snakes and ladders.  

The 2011 Living Mandala program, in which attendees literally stepped inside a painting, became a precursor to the interactive Mandala Lab installation 10 years later. The Rubin confronted the climate crisis in a series on the concept of karma; staged improvised interpretations of Carl Jung’s imagery in the Red Book Dialogues; and turned the theater into a public medical consultation room to allow people to experience aspects of Tibetan medicine. Free programs, such as K2 Friday Nights, Family Sundays, and the Block Party, broke down barriers to access and attracted families and younger audiences to the Museum. An early adopter of podcasting, the Rubin started offering the weekly Mindfulness Meditation podcast in 2015, and later launched AWAKEN, which was a Webby Honoree in 2021.

This cross-disciplinary and interactive approach continues to be at the heart of the Rubin with the traveling Mandala Lab as its anchor. A school curriculum rooted in Social, Emotional, and Ethical Learning (SEE Learning®) has been developed based on the interactivity of the Mandala Lab experience.