The National Art Gallery in Colombo,

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

was the first state-sponsored

art gallery An art gallery is a room or a building in which visual art is displayed. In Western cultures from the mid-15th century, a gallery was any long, narrow covered passage along a wall, first used in the sense of a place for art in the 1590s. The lon ...

built in the country. The gallery is located in Cinnamon Gardens near the Nelum Pokuna Mahinda Rajapaksa Theatre, Viharamahadevi Park, the

National Museum of Colombo The Colombo National Museum, also known as the Sri Lanka National Museum, is a museum in Colombo and the largest in Sri Lanka. Founded in 1877 and maintained by the Department of National Museums, it holds collections of significant importance ...

, the

Town Hall, Colombo The Town Hall of Colombo ( si, කොළඹ නගර ශාලාව, ta, நகர மண்டபம், கொழும்பு) is the headquarters of the Colombo Municipal Council and the office of the Mayor of Colombo. Built in front of ...

and Colombo Public Library. The building consists of a three wing gallery space: the main gallery has a permanent collection of portraits and landscapes and the two adjoining wings display temporary exhibitions by Sri Lankan artists. The eastern hall is approximately and the western hall is approximately about . Both galleries have a ceiling height. In 1911 the need for a national art gallery was first identified by the

Ceylon Society of Arts Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

and the

Arts Council of Ceylon The arts are a very wide range of human practices of creative expression, storytelling and cultural participation. They encompass multiple diverse and plural modes of thinking, doing and being, in an extremely broad range of media. Both h ...

however its construction was delayed until after World War 1. The central gallery was completed and opened in March 1932. The building was designed by Gate Mudliyar

A. C. G. S. Amarasekara Gate Mudaliyar Abraham Christopher Gregory Sooriyarachchi Amarasekara (2 March 1883 – 29 March 1983) was a Sri Lankan painter. He is considered one the important Sri Lanka artists of the Ceylon Society of Arts of the mid 20th century. ...

. In 1952 the gallery was placed under the control of the Department of Cultural Affairs. In June 2013, the gallery's collection was reported to be in a very poor state of repair.

References

Museums with year of establishment missing Art museums and galleries in Sri Lanka Museums in Colombo National museums of Sri Lanka {{art-display-stub