History
The National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA) at Delhi was established on March 29, 1954 by the Government of India, and subsequent branches were opened at Mumbai and Bangalore. It is the leading gallery of modern art in India, and houses a collection of more than 14,000 works. This includes artists such as Rabindranath Tagore, Thomas Daniell, Raja Ravi Verma, Abanindranath Tagore, Gaganendranath Tagore, Nandalal Bose, Amrita Sher-Gil as well as other prominent foreign artists, besides countless sculptures by various artists, with some works dating back to 1857.
The building is located at the end of Rajpath and faces the India Gate. It was originally the residential palace of the Maharaja of Jaipur, also known as "Jaipur House". The structure was designed by Sir Arthur Bloomfield, in 1936, following the construction of Lutyens' Delhi.
The museum was inaugurated by the Vice-president Dr S. Radhakrishnan in 1954, in the presence of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. Hermann Goetz, who was an eminent German art historian of the time, became its first curator. The museum has subsequently added a number of other facilities such as an Art Reference Library, a Documentation Centre and Art restoration services. The NGMA underwent major expansion in 2009, when a new wing was inaugurated that added almost six times the space to the existing gallery, besides a new auditorium, academic section, a cafeteria, a museum shop, a preview theatre, a conservation laboratory and a library.
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Trivia
The displays at the NGMA get changed every month, except for the masterpieces such as Amrita Shergill's Self Portrait, Jamini Roy's Krishna and Balarama, Two women, Musicians and Bathers and Kirian, Yasoda and Krishna.
Among the contemporary artists it has works of Souza, Maqbool Fida Husain and SH Raza.
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