One among the popular art gallery is the National Gallery of Modern Art. Indian Government established this museum at New Delhi Jaipur House on 29th March 1954 together with its branches at Bangalore and Mumbai. The museum carries more than 14000 works of popular artists including Amrita Sher-Gil, Jamini Roy, Nandalal Bose, Gaganendrenath Tagore, Ravindranath Tagore, Abanindranath Tagore, Raja Ravi Verma and Thomas Daniell along with many international artists. The oldest works placed in this gallery dates back to the year 1857.

History

In 1949, the necessity for a modern art museum was felt in an Art based conference conducted in Calcutta. The National Gallery of Modern Art then established at Jaipur house, India Gate, New Delhi on 29th March 1954. This is definitely a premium destination of its type in Delhi.  This place was under the maintenance of Indian Government, Department of Culture. The branches of NGMA were established in Mumbai and Bangalore. This gallery acts as a collection of India’s cultural ethos showing the change in arts right from 1857 especially in the area of plastic and visual arts.

This gallery represents changing arts over the past 150 years featuring mainly the works of Bengali artists and their styles. Apart from domestic exhibitions they also organize international exhibitions, conferences, and lectures on the topic of modern art. They also maintain a library for audiovisual materials, photographs, periodicals and books.
Situated close to India Gate, Jaipur Maharaja earlier used this gallery as his residential place. It displays about 4000 sculptures, graphics and paintings of various modern artists. They also arrange exhibitions for people who like to display their artistic works. The National Gallery of Modern Art was then established at Jaipur house, India Gate, New Delhi on 29th March 1954. This is a definitely a premium destination of its type in Delhi. This place was under the maintenance of Indian Government, Department of Culture. This gallery represents changing arts over the past 150 years featuring mainly the works of Bengali artists and their styles. There are graphic arts, sculptures and paintings dating back to middle of 19th century. The place is famous for the works of Abanindranath Tagore specially his Landscape, Twilight, Advent of the Rainy Season and many more. Apart from this, it also consists of popular works of Binod Behari Mukherjee, Rabindranath Tagore, Ramkumar Kinkar, Nandalal Bose and many others. The primary responsibility of this National Gallery of Modern Art is to set up the quality and maintain excellence in all their activities. Irrespective of their few drawbacks, they displayed impressive improvement in the last 20 years.

Aims and Objectives

The primary aims and objectives of National Gallery of Modern Arts include:

• To procure and preserve modern arts dating back to 1850s
• To maintain, organize and improve galleries for long term display
• To conduct exhibitions in other areas in India and abroad along with its premises
• To establish a documentation and education centre to obtain, preserve and maintain documents of modern art
• To maintain special library for audio visual materials, photographs, periodicals and books
• To organize conferences, seminars and lectures and also to encourage higher education along with research in the areas of interrelations on performing and visual arts, museology, art appreciation, art criticism and art history.

The primary responsibility of this National Gallery of Modern Art is to set up the quality and maintain excellence in all their activities. The educational and aesthetic purposes are clearly defined in their objectives and aims which they also inculcate in their organization and all its functions.

Apart from all of this, National Gallery of Modern Art encourages people to enjoy modern art, to understand and appreciate modern art and its relation with daily life and experiencing the art as significant expressions of human spirit.

Collections

The gallery collection includes paintings, graphics and sculptures of international artists including Kozo Mio, Peter Lubarda, Giorgio de Chirico and Jacob Epstein. There are also works on Krishna and Yashoda, Kirian, Balarama, Jamini Roy’s Krishna, Bather’s, Musicians, Two women along with self portrait of Amrita Shergill. There are also works of popular contemporary artists like Bhupen Khakhar, Ghulam Mohammed Sheikh, J Swaminathan, Vivan Sundaram and M.F. Hussain and many more.

Location & Timing

The Gallery remains open for public on all days between 10 am and 5 pm. It remains closed only on Mondays and other holidays like Holi, Diwali, Id-ul-zuha and Republic Day.

Location

Jaipur House, India Gate, Near Delhi High Court,
New Delhi- 110 003.
Timing: 10:00am To 5:00 pm
Closed: Monday

How to Reach

Tourists can reach this spot by taking local transport buses from various spots of Delhi to this museum. They can also prefer metro rail or taxi or auto rickshaws to reach this place.