EXHIBITION RUNS JUNE 12--August 24, 2003
OGLETHORPE UNIVERSITY MUSEUM OF ART (ATLANTA)

ATLANTA - The Oglethorpe University Museum of Art is proud to announce the return of The Female Buddha: Women of Enlightenment in Tibetan Mysticism, first presented in Fall, 2002, and back by popular demand. The exhibition, which re-opens on June 12 and runs though August 24, 2003, features around seventy tangkas -- masterpieces of Tibetan painting -- and a dozen bronze and wood figures on loan from the Rubin Collections. The Rubin Collections are among the most extensive collections of Himalayan art in the United States, and form the core of the Rubin Museum of Art (RMA) now being created by Donald Rubin, a 1956 alumnus of Oglethorpe University, with his wife and co-collector Shelley Rubin. The Museum will open in March, 2004, in New York City.

Before their appearance at Oglethorpe last September, these works had never been made public, nor had an exhibit on this theme ever been presented in the United States. Its popularity makes evident not only the beauty and power of Himalayan art, but the importance of its ideas to museum visitors today.

A full color catalogue of the exhibit entitled Female Buddhas: Women of Enlightenment in Tibetan Mystical Art, written by exhibition curator Glenn H. Mullin (with Jeff J. Watt), was published by Clear Light Publishers and is available at the Oglethorpe Museum and at local bookstores. Mr. Mullin is a world-renowned scholar of Tibetan culture, and the author of more than 21 books on Buddhist topics. Interviews with Donald Rubin and Mr. Mullin are being scheduled. To schedule an interview or for more information, please contact Ryan Urcia, Workhouse Publicity, at 212. 334. 8006, or via email urcia@workhousepr.com

Mr. Mullin lived for many years in Dharamsala, India, completing rigorous training in Buddhist philosophy at the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives and Tsennyi Labtra Monastery. Mr. Mullin has lectured and conducted workshops throughout the U.S., Canada, Europe and the Far East; worked as a field specialist on several Tibet-related films; co-produced five audio recordings of Tibetan sacred music, and has appeared many times on the Discovery Channel, PBS and other stations. He was instrumental in organizing the first performance tours of Tibetan monks in the U.S. and the around the world, as well as the exhibit Mystical Arts of Tibet, which toured the nation from 1995 to 2001.

The Oglethorpe University Museum of Art (OUMA) creates and sponsors its own exhibits, featuring art which is historical and representational in form, national and international in origin, and mythological and spiritual in content. Now celebrating the Year of Asia, the Museum is located on the third floor of the Philip Weltner Library at the University. For more information about OUMA, please visit their website at
http://museum.oglethorpe.edu.