Museum · Kolkata, West Bengal
Asutosh Museum of Indian Art
The first public museum in an Indian university, opened at the University of Calcutta in 1937. It collects the art of Bengal: terracotta, folk painting, scrolls and kantha.
See first
- Terracotta from Chandraketugarh, Tamluk and other Bengal sites
- Kalighat paintings
- Painted scrolls and painted book covers
- Kantha embroidery
The museum is on the first and second floors of the Centenary Building on the University of Calcutta’s College Street campus. It opened in 1937, the first public museum in any Indian university, and is named after Sir Ashutosh Mukherjee, five times the university’s vice-chancellor. From the start its brief was the art of India with special attention to Bengal.
It has held to that. The terracotta comes from Bengal’s own excavated sites: Chandraketugarh, Harinarayanpur, Tamluk, Bangarh and Paharpur. The painting is mostly regional and rural: Kalighat pictures, painted scrolls, painted book covers. Kantha, the running-stitch embroidery of Bengal, is on display too.
It is the place to see the art of Bengal’s villages and old sites under one roof.