Museum · Bengaluru, Karnataka
National Gallery of Modern Art, Bengaluru
The southern branch of the national gallery, in a restored mansion on Palace Road. About 500 works on show, from miniatures to post-independence painting.
See first
- Raja Ravi Varma
- Amrita Sher-Gil and Jamini Roy
- The Tagores, including Rabindranath's own paintings
- Sculpture by S. Dhanapal and Kanayi Kunhiraman
- Arpita Singh and Anjolie Ela Menon
The house came first. Manikyavelu Mansion on Palace Road was built by the merchant Haji Sir Ismail Sait, who called it Ismailia. It later passed to Manickavelu Mudaliar, who leased manganese and chrome mines, and then to the city’s improvement trust and the housing board. In 2000 the state leased it to the Ministry of Culture. Restoration began in 2003, and the gallery opened on 18 February 2009.
About 500 works are on display across two floors, in a mix of corridors, small rooms and large halls. They are hung by period, school and artist: Indian miniatures, colonial-era painters, the Bengal School, then the artists who came after independence. The building also holds an auditorium and a public art reference library.
It is a manageable museum: one to two hours is enough. The gallery also runs talks, film screenings, workshops and guided walks through the year.