Photos of Tibet in the early 1940's

http://www.skidmore.edu/academics/asianstudies/TibetanPhotos/Snaps.html
06 Mar 2007

Art History, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY, US

Self-description:
"These photos were taken in Tibet by members of the Tolstoy expedition of 1942-43. Two U.S. Army officers, Lt. Col. Ilya Tolstoy and Capt. Brooke Dolan were sent to Tibet from India to explore the possibility of getting military supplies to Chiang Kai-shek's Republican Chinese government, via Tibet. [...] A number of [... these photographs] were featured in a book by Rosemary Jones Tung, A Portrait of Lost Tibet: Photographs by Ilya Tolstoy and Brook Dolan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), a few were reproduced in Tibet: The Sacred Realm: Photographs 1880 - 1950 (Aperture Books, 1983), in a National Geographic [August, 1946 - ed.] magazine article and a few other places here and there. Many of them are still unidentified. [... Alltogether there ... ] are some [230] amazingly beautiful photographs [... that have been scanned] so far. Some have considerable historical interest, particularly in the light of the transformation of Tibet over the past 50 years."

Site contents:
B&W PHOTOGRAPHS: * The Americans (The Expedition Scenes of Travel, Camping, Tolstoy and Dolan); * Tibetan Art (Painters and Carvers, Mural paintings, Sculpture, Chortens (stupas), Temples and other architecture, The Potala, Gyantse, Yemar, Textiles: Carpets and Cloth); * Tibetan Religion (The Ch'am/Masked Dance Festival, Monks and Monastic Life, The Regents Procession, The Potala, Gyantse, Other monastic sites, Pilgrims and Prostration); * Tibetan Society (Nomadic Pasturalists, Ordinary Tibetans, Pilgrims and Prostration, The Tibetan "Army", Urban Scenes, The Wealthy and Aristocrats); * The Chinese (The Chinese Army, On the Road to Gansu, Scenes of Western China); * Miscellany (A Postcard from Heinrich Harrer);
THE TOLSTOY-DOLAN EXPEDITION (Bibliography, Background Notes).

[A 1999 web site by Dr Rob Linrothe, Associate Professor and Director of Art History at Skidmore College. In addition to the Tibet Photographs site he also published the following web pages: * Karsha's Chuchikjyal Temple, Zangskar, 1996 (http://www.skidmore.edu/academics/asianstudies/new2/linrothe/Karsha/Chuchikjyal.html) * Tibetan Art at Skidmore, 1998 (http://www.skidmore.edu/academics/asianstudies/new2/linrothe/TibetArtDisplay/Display.html) * Monks and monasteries in Amdo, 1998 (http://www.skidmore.edu/academics/asianstudies/new2/linrothe/Qinghai/TongrenSi.html) * Petroglyphs near Karsha, in Zangskar, 1998 (http://www.skidmore.edu/academics/asianstudies/new2/linrothe/Petroglyphs/RockArt.html) * QuickTime video of Ladakh and Mangyu chorten, 1994. (http://www.skidmore.edu/academics/asianstudies/new2/linrothe/Mangyu/Webpage.html) - ed.]

URL http://www.skidmore.edu/academics/asianstudies/TibetanPhotos/Snaps.html

Internet Archive (www.archive.org) - http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.skidmore.edu/academics/asianstudies/TibetanPhotos/Snaps.html

Link reported by: T. Matthew Ciolek (tmciolek--at--coombs.anu.edu.au)

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