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Story Behind the Art: The Indo-Tibetan category came into being in the latter half of the 20th century, largely as a response to the displacement of Tibetan weavers following the political upheaval of the 1950s and 60s, when a significant number of Tibetan refugees resettled in Nepal and northern India, particularly in towns like Kathmandu, Pokhara and Dharamsala. Aid organizations and development programs helped establish weaving cooperatives in these communities, and what followed was a gradual evolution of the traditional Tibetan craft within a new geographic and commercial context. Indian and Nepalese production centers began adapting Tibetan design sensibilities to broader international tastes, incorporating Persian floral formats, Art Deco influences and transitional design vocabularies alongside the more traditional Tibetan geometric and symbolic work, while maintaining the hand knotted construction and high quality wool that defined the original tradition. The result was a category of rug that carried the structural and material integrity of Tibetan weaving but with a design range broad enough to appeal to a global market, and it is within that context that the Indo-Tibetan rug as it is known today developed its identity.
