28 Facts About Nicholas Roerich

Nicholas Roerich, known as Nikolai Konstantinovich Rerikh, was a Russian painter, writer, archaeologist, theosophist, philosopher, and public figure.

Nicholas Roerich was interested in hypnosis and other spiritual practices and his paintings are said to have hypnotic expression.

Nicholas Roerich was a dedicated activist for the cause of preserving art and architecture during times of war.

Nicholas Roerich was nominated several times to the longlist for the Nobel Peace Prize.

The so-called Nicholas Roerich Pact was signed into law by the United States and most other nations of the Pan-American Union in April 1935.

Nicholas Roerich received the title of "artist" in 1897 and a degree in law the next year.

Nicholas Roerich found early employment with the Imperial Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, whose school he directed from 1906 to 1917.

Artistically, Nicholas Roerich became known as his generation's most talented painter of Russia's ancient past, a topic that was compatible with his lifelong interest in archeology.

Nicholas Roerich succeeded as a stage designer by achieving his greatest fame as one of the designers for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes.

Nicholas Roerich's acclaimed publication "Architectural Studies", consisting of dozens of paintings he made of fortresses, monasteries, churches, and other monuments during two long trips through Russia, inspired his decades-long career as an activist on behalf of artistic and architectural preservation.

Meanwhile, illness forced Nicholas Roerich to leave the capital and reside in Karelia, the district bordering Finland.

Nicholas Roerich had already quit the presidency of the World of Art society, and he now quit the directorship of the School of the Imperial Society for the Encouragement of the Arts.

Second, when Nicholas Roerich later wished to reconcile with the Soviet Union, he maintained that he had not left Soviet Russia deliberately, but that he and his family, living in Karelia, had been isolated from their homeland when the Finnish Civil War began.

Nicholas Roerich befriended acclaimed soprano Mary Garden of the Chicago Opera and received a commission to design a 1922 production of Rimsky-Korsakov's The Snow Maiden for her.

Nicholas Roerich gave lectures and wrote articles to White Russian populations in which he criticized the Soviet Union.

Nicholas Roerich claimed that his spiritual masters, the "Mahatmas" in the Himalayas, were communicating telepathically with him through his wife, Helena, who was a mystic and a clairvoyant.

Nicholas Roerich initially settled in Darjeeling in the same house that the 13th Dalai Lama had stayed during his exile in India.

Nicholas Roerich spent his time painting the Himalayas with visitors such as Frederick Marshman Bailey, Lady Lytton, and members of the 1924 British Everest Expedition, as well as Sonam Wangfel Laden La, Kusho Doring, and Tsarong Shape, influential Tibetans.

On his way to America, Nicholas Roerich stopped at the Soviet embassy in Berlin, where he told the local plenipotentiary about a Central Asian expedition he wanted to take.

Nicholas Roerich asked for Soviet protection on his way, and shared his impressions of politics in India and Tibet.

The official mission of his expedition, as Nicholas Roerich put it, was to act as the embassy of Western Buddhism to Tibet.

Nicholas Roerich reported seeing a metallic oval in the sky over the Tibet; Decades later, UFO enthusiasts would claim the Nicholas Roerich expedition witnessed a "flying saucer".

In 1929 Nicholas Roerich was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by the University of Paris.

Nicholas Roerich received two more nominations in 1932 and 1935.

Nicholas Roerich was in India during World War II, where he painted Russian epic heroic and saintly themes, including Alexander Nevsky, The Fight of Mstislav and Rededia, and Boris and Gleb.

In 1942, Nicholas Roerich received Jawaharlal Nehru and his daughter, Indira Gandhi, at his house in Kullu.

Nicholas Roerich was a man with extensive knowledge and enormous experience, a man with a big heart, deeply influenced by all that he observed.

Nicholas Roerich had a lengthy correspondence with Henry Wallace, the 1948 Progressive Party candidate for US president.