National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai was
opened to the public in 1996.
It hosts various exhibitions and art collections
of famous artists, sculptors and different
civilisations.
It is located near Regal Cinema in Colaba.
== History ==
The idea of a National art gallery to germinate
and bear fruit was first mooted in 1949.
It was nurtured carefully by Prime Minister
Jawahar Lal Nehru and Maulana Azad, sensitive
bureaucrats like Humayun Kabir and an active
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, 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.
It was Lutyens, along with Herbert Baker,
who visualised and gave shape to the new capital
in Delhi.
Along with buildings designed for other princely
potentates like Bikaner and Hyderabad, Jaipur
House girded the India Gate circle.
The famous architect conceptualised a harmony
of facades giving the buildings a distinctive
character.
NGMA’s inauguration was marked by an exhibition
of sculptures.
All the prominent sculptors of the time like
Debi Prasad Roy Chowdhury, Ramkinkar Baij,
Sankho Chaudhuri, Dhanraj Bhagat, Sarbari
Roy Chowdhury and others had participated.
The show spoke of the painstaking preparations
made by NGMA’s first curator Herman Goetz.
A noted German art historian, Goetz had earlier
been responsible for setting up the Baroda
Museum.
Since Goetz’s tenure, NGMA has had a string
of distinguished directors.
The Gallery is the premier institution of
its kind in India.
It is run and administered as a subordinate
office to the Department of Culture, Government
of India.
The NGMA has two branches one at Mumbai and
the other at Bengaluru shortly.
The gallery is a repository of the cultural
ethos of the country 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 and Plastic
arts.
Not withstanding some gaps and some trivia,
the NGMA collection today is undeniably the
most significant collection of modern art
and contemporary art in the country today.
== Collection ==
A collection of Pablo Picasso's works
Egyptian artifacts such as mummies, statues,
etc.Bibliography:
Ella Datta, Treasures of National Gallery
of Modern Art.ISBN 978-81-88204-30-4.MAPIN(Ahmedabad)
== See also ==
Kolkata Museum of Modern Art
National Gallery of Modern Art, Bangalore
National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi
== 
External links ==
NGMA Web site
