Murals of Tibet. BABY SUMO. Art Edition No. 1–80, ‘Buddha Shakyamuni, Gyantse Kumbum’ (early 15th century)
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This Art Edition (No. 1–80) includes the archival pigment print Buddha Shakyamuni, Gyantse Kumbum (early 15th century), numbered and signed by Thomas Laird and printed in 11 colors with an additional two-color gold silkscreen on Fabriano Artistico Cotton Rag paper with deckled edges.
It is accompanied by the hardcover volume Murals of Tibet, also numbered and signed by Thomas Laird. For over a decade, the photographer traveled across the Tibetan plateau, capturing the most precious surviving murals of Tibetan Buddhist culture and creating the world's first archive of this World Heritage landmark. Experience these spectacular artworks in vibrant color and intricate detail, and discover the heart of Tibetan Buddhism.
Originally published as a SUMO edition signed by His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, this edition makes the work accessible to a wider audience in a more streamlined format while maintaining the same state-of-the-art reproduction quality.
Murals of Tibet. BABY SUMO. Art Edition No. 1–80, ‘Buddha Shakyamuni, Gyantse Kumbum’ (early 15th century)
3000Majestic Illumination
A thousand years of Tibetan mural masterpieces
Hidden amidst soaring snowy mountains, deep valleys, and desolate deserts are some of the greatest treasures of Buddhist culture and Tibetan heritage. For more than a decade, photographer Thomas Laird traveled the length, breadth, and far-flung corners of the Tibetan plateau to capture the land’s spectacular Buddhist murals in all their sublime vastness, intricacy, and their spiritual, emotional, and psychological enrichment.
Deploying new multi-image digital photography, Laird compiled the world’s first archive of these artworks, some walls as wide as 10 meters, in life-size resolution. This breathtaking publication assembles Laird’s portfolio in large format with six fold-outs, printed in five colors including gold. Featuring both complete murals and copious details, it immerses readers into these precious, extraordinary masterpieces.
In the 528-page scholarly companion book, Buddhist writer and academic Robert Thurman takes us through this transcendent journey with detailed text on the murals' spiritual significance while captions from experts Heather Stoddard and Jakob Winkler shed light on the storylines and artistic context of each image.
As his Holiness the Dalai Lama has himself explained, these murals are not just objects of beauty, but serve as points of reference and guidance for practitioners of Buddhism, yoga, and meditation, as well as for anyone seeking to incorporate mindfulness into their daily life. Binding contemporary photographic technology with ancient traditions, this book is at once a majestic art piece, a major milestone in the appreciation of Buddhism, a precious monument to Tibetan culture, and a vital source for the contemplative arts and sciences.
Art Edition (No. 1–80) with the archival pigment print Buddha Shakyamuni, Gyantse Kumbum (early 15th century), numbered and signed by Thomas Laird and printed in 11 colors with an additional two-color gold silkscreen on Fabriano Artistico Cotton Rag paper with deckled edges.
The photographer and author
The authors
Jakob Winkler is a Tibetologist (M.A.) who studied in Munich, Kathmandu, and Vienna. He works as a scholar, translator, editor, and teacher in the field of Tibetology and Buddhism. Winkler has studied and practiced Buddhism since the mid-eighties under various masters. His main teacher is the Dzogchen master Chogyal Namkhai Norbu, from whom he received authorization to teach Dharma in 2002 as a Santi Maha Sangha instructor. He is one of the Western experts of Dzogchen and has contributed fundamental research to the understanding of Lhasa’s Lukhang temple, being the first Western scholar to identify Pema Lingpa’s treasure text as the source for the Lukhang mural.
Robert A. F. Thurman (1941–2026) was a scholar of Tibetan Buddhism who held a Vajrāchārya degree from the Dalai Lama’s Monastery, where he was briefly a monk, and a Ph.D from Harvard University. He was the Jey Tsongkhapa Professor Emeritus of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies at Columbia University, holding for 31 years the first endowed chair in the West in this field. He co-founded the American Institute of Buddhist Studies, to translate the Tibetan classics, and also Tibet House US, to preserve Tibetan culture, endangered in its homeland. He had been close friends and a student of the Dalai Lama since 1964. A prolific author, he was a strong advocate of the Buddhist spiritual sciences and for the survival of Tibet and its enlightening culture. Upon his retirement in 2019, he received the prestigious Padma Shri Award for his life’s work of helping India enhance the record of its classical Buddhist heritage.
Murals of Tibet. BABY SUMO. Art Edition No. 1–80, ‘Buddha Shakyamuni, Gyantse Kumbum’ (early 15th century)
Edition of 80Archival 11-color pigment print with additional 2-color gold silkscreen on Fabriano Artistico Cotton Rag Paper, 310gm2, with deckled edges, 57.5 x 80 cm; hardcover volume with six fold-outs, gilt edges, cold-foil-printed pages and five ribbon bookmarks, 498 pages, 35.8 x 50 cm, in a clamshell box; plus an illustrated 528-page scholarly companion book, 20.5 x 28.6 cm; total weight ca. 22 kgISBN 978-3-7544-0759-2
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