• The National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA) will house the ‘Maharaja Collection’ of Air India artworks. An MoU was signed for handing over the priceless artefacts collection of Air India since 1953 to NGMA.

• Air India has acquired and collected a massive number of valuable artworks from around the world consisting of paintings, sculptures, wooden carvings, glass paintings, decorative items, textile art, photographs and other objects. These art objects will be a part of the collection at NGMA.

• The art collection includes works by eminent artists like B. Prabha, Shankar Palsikar, Lakshman Pai, Vasudev Gaitonde, M.F. Husain, S.H. Raza, K.H. Ara and Hari Ambadas Gade. It also includes works of art of living legends like Anjolie Ela Menon and Jatin Das that will enhance the NGMA collection further.

National Gallery of Modern Art

• The National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA) in New Delhi is the premier institution of modern art in the country. It is run and administered as a subordinate office of the ministry of culture. 

• It is a repository of more than 18,000 most significant works of modern and contemporary art in the country.

• The NGMA has two branches — one in Mumbai and the other in Bengaluru. 

• 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 and plastic arts. 

• The NGMA has the most significant collection of modern and contemporary art in the country today.

History of NGMA

• The idea of a national art gallery was first mooted in 1949. Vice President Dr. S. Radhakrishnan formally inaugurated the NGMA in the presence of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and artists and art lovers in New Delhi on March 29, 1954. 

• The choice of Jaipur House, one of the premier edifices of Lutyens’ Delhi, signified the envisaged high profile of the institution. 

• Designed by architect Charles G. Blomfield and his brother Francis B. 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. 

• 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.

Objectives of NGMA:

i) To acquire and preserve works of modern art from the 1850s onward.

ii) To organise, maintain and develop galleries for permanent display.

iii) To organise special exhibitions not only in its own premises but in other parts of the country and abroad.

iv) To develop an education and documentation centre in order to acquire, maintain and preserve documents relating to works of modern art.

v) To develop a specialised library of books, periodicals, photographs and other audio visual materials.

vi) To organise lectures, seminars and conferences, and to encourage higher studies and research in the field of art history, art criticism, art appreciation, museology and the inter-relations on visual and performing arts.

• The foremost responsibility of the NGMA is to ensure quality and to set and maintain standards of excellence. 

• The NGMA helps people to look at the works of modern art with greater joy, understanding and knowledge and experiencing them as vital expressions of the human spirit.

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