Roerich Family - Cultural Legacy

Cultural Legacy

Vice President of the United States Henry A. Wallace was a frequent correspondent and sometime follower of Roerich's teachings. This became controversial when Wallace ran for President in 1948 and portions of the correspondence were printed by Hearst Newspapers columnist Westbrook Pegler, becoming known as the "Guru Letters".

Today, the Nicholas Roerich Museum in New York City is a major center for Roerich's artistic work. Numerous Roerich societies continue to promote his theosophical teachings worldwide. His paintings can be seen in several museums including the Roerich Department of the State Museum of Oriental Arts in Moscow; the Roerich Museum at the International Centre of the Roerichs in Moscow; the Russian State Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia; a collection in the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow; a collection in the Art Museum in Novosibirsk, Russia; an important collection in the National Gallery for Foreign Art in Sofia, Bulgaria; a collection in the Art Museum in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia; the Roerich Hall Estate in Nagar village, Kullu Valley, Himachal-Pradesh (India); in various art museums in India; and a selection featuring several of his larger works in The Latvian National Museum of Art.

Roerich's biography and his controversial expeditions to Tibet and Manchuria have been recently explored by a number of authors, including two Russians, Vladimir Rosov and Alexandre Andreyev, American (Andrei Znamenski), and the German Ernst von Waldenfels.

H.P. Lovecraft referred to the "strange and disturbing paintings of Nicholas Roerich" in his Antarctic horror story At the Mountains of Madness.

The minor planet 4426 Roerich (pictured) in our Solar System was named in honor of Roerich.