On 6th March, beautiful early spring day, first new exhibition in this cultural season was inaugurated at the Modern Art Exhibition Hall, IRMT.

All participants of the inauguration, as well as tourists highly appreciated the fresh idea of this young local artist – traditional Kullu mufflers with designs inspired by Nicholas Roerich’s paintings were really beautiful. Guests of the IRMT, members of the Estonian Roerich Society, who were at that moment visiting the Trust, were happy to see the exhibition and wished a lot of success to the artist.

Vishwanath’s two friends from France and Canada, artists from Swami Shyam’s Ashram, Kullu, were also present at the exhibition – in fact, it were them, who gave this idea to the artist and also helped him in preparatory stages of the work.

Vishwanath said, he will continue to work in this direction, making new designs and incorporating new paintings of Nicholas Roerich in his weaving work. Also he will be having a workshop at the IRMT in the month of June.

Name of the Artist: VISHWANATH
Father’s name: Sh.Utam Chand
Education: 5 classes
Address: Village Suma, P.O. Dughi Lag, Kullu distt., Himachal Pradesh

From his 12th year, Vishwanath  was working on making Kullu shawls, mufflers, caps and other local handicrafts. Still, from his childhood, he was interested to pursue his education in drawing and painting, which was not accomplished due to lack of funds and facilities.
Three years ago, while visiting the Roerich Art Gallery, he saw the paintings of Nicholas Roerich – suddenly the idea came to his mind: “I should try to make these paintings in kullu shawls…”

And so he tried. After three years of hard work, he created several beautiful shawls and mufflers with Roerich paintings.

Vishwanath says:
“I want to give a new dimension to Kullu shawls and mufflers… We have such wonderful nature, glorious mountains around us. I dream to incorporate this inspiring beauty to my handicrafts. Paintings of Nicholas Roerich are so natural and great – they appear so beautifully as designs on shawls and mufflers. I wish this new idea gets its further development.
For me it is the childhood dream becoming true today…”