National Gallery of Modern Art,

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the secon ...

was opened to the public in 1996. It hosts various exhibitions and art collections of famous artists, sculptors and different civilizations. It is situated in the Cowasji Jehangir Hall, near

Regal Cinema The Regal Cinema is an Art deco movie theatre located at Colaba Causeway, in Mumbai, India. Built by Framji Sidhwa, the first film to be aired at the Regal was the Laurel and Hardy work '' The Devil's Brother'' in 1933. According to the '' ...

Colaba Colaba (; or ISO: Kolābā) is a part of the city of Mumbai, India. It is one of the four peninsulas of Mumbai while the other three are Worli, Bandra and Malabar Hill. During Portuguese rule in the 16th century, the island was known as Kolbh ...

History

The idea of a National art gallery was first mooted in 1949, and further developed by Prime Minister

Jawahar Lal Nehru Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru (; ; ; 14 November 1889 – 27 May 1964) was an Indian anti-colonial nationalist, secular humanist, social democrat— * * * * and author who was a central figure in India during the middle of the 20 ...

and

Maulana Azad Abul Kalam Ghulam Muhiyuddin Ahmed bin Khairuddin Al-Hussaini Azad (; 11 November 1888 – 22 February 1958) was an Indian independence activist, Islamic theologian, writer and a senior leader of the Indian National Congress. Following Ind ...

, bureaucrats such as Humayun Kabir and the local art community. Vice-president Dr. S.Radhakrishnan formally inaugurated the NGMA in the presence of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and artists and art lovers of the city on 29 March 1954. The choice of Jaipur House, one of the premier edifices of Lutyens’ Delhi, signified the envisaged high profile of the institution. Designed by

Sir Arthur Blomfield Sir Arthur William Blomfield (6 March 182930 October 1899) was an English architect. He became president of the Architectural Association in 1861; a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1867 and vice-president of the RIBA in ...

, as a residence for the Maharaja of Jaipur, the butterfly-shaped building with a central dome was built in 1936. It was styled after a concept of the Central Hexagon visualised by

Sir Edwin Lutyens Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens ( ; 29 March 1869 – 1 January 1944) was an English architect known for imaginatively adapting traditional architectural styles to the requirements of his era. He designed many English country houses, war memoria ...

. It was Lutyens, along with Herbert Baker, who visualized and gave shape to the new capital in

Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders w ...

. Along with buildings designed for other princely potentates like Bikaner and Hyderabad, Jaipur House girded the India Gate circle. NGMA's inauguration was marked by an exhibition of sculptures. Prominent sculptors of the time including Debi Prasad Roy Chowdhury,

Ramkinkar Baij Ramkinkar Baij ( bn, রামকিঙ্কর বেইজ) (25 May 1906 – 2 August 1980) was an Indian sculptor and painter, one of the pioneers of modern Indian sculpture and a key figure of Contextual Modernism. Early life and ...

Sankho Chaudhuri Sankho Chaudhuri (25 February 1916 – 28 August 2006) was an Indian sculptor, a noted figure in the art scene of India. (Although named Naranarain in due family tradition, he was more widely known by his pet-name Sankho). Ram Kinker Baij was h ...

, Dhanraj Bhagat, Sarbari Roy Chowdhury and others had participated. The show was prepared by NGMA's first curator Herman Goetz. A noted German art historian, Goetz had earlier been responsible for setting up the Baroda Museum. The Gallery is run and administered as a subordinate office to the Department of Culture, Government of India, and showcases the changing art forms through the passage of the last hundred and fifty years starting from about 1857 in the field of

Visual art The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, photography, video, filmmaking, design, crafts and architecture. Many artistic disciplines such as performing arts, conceptual art, and textile arts ...

and

Plastic arts Plastic arts are art forms which involve physical manipulation of a plastic medium by molding or modeling such as sculpture or ceramics. Less often the term may be used broadly for all the visual arts (such as painting, sculpture, film and ...

Collection

* A collection of

Pablo Picasso Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...

's worksNational Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai
''myguidemumbai.com''. Retrieved 4 September 2021 *

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning the North Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via a land bridg ...

ian artifacts such as

mummies A mummy is a dead human or an animal whose soft tissues and organs have been preserved by either intentional or accidental exposure to chemicals, extreme cold, very low humidity, or lack of air, so that the recovered body does not decay furt ...

, statues, etc. Bibliography: Ella Datta, Treasures of National Gallery of Modern Art..MAPIN(Ahmedabad)

References

External links

NGMA Web site
{{Coord, 18.9258, 72.8313, type:landmark_region:IN, display=title Art museums and galleries in Mumbai Museums established in 1996 1996 establishments in Maharashtra The Victorian and Art Deco Ensemble of Mumbai de:National Gallery of Modern Art hi:राष्ट्रीय आधुनिक कला संग्रहालय he:הגלריה הלאומית לאמנות מודרנית (ניו דלהי)

History

Collection

See also

References

External links