Sree Chitra Art Gallery is an

art gallery An art gallery is a room or a building in which visual art is displayed. In Western cultures from the mid-15th century, a gallery was any long, narrow covered passage along a wall, first used in the sense of a place for art in the 1590s. The lon ...

Thiruvananthapuram Thiruvananthapuram (; ), also known by its former name Trivandrum (), is the capital of the Indian state of Kerala. It is the most populous city in Kerala with a population of 957,730 as of 2011. The encompassing urban agglomeration populati ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

, established in 1935. It is located in the northern grounds of the

Napier Museum The Napier Museum is an art and natural history museum situated in Thiruvananthapuram, India. The Museum is grounds to the Trivandrum Zoo, one of the oldest zoological gardens in India. The zoo was established in 1857 over of land. It also c ...

. It was inaugurated by

Chithira Thirunal Balarama Varma Sree Padmanabhadasa Sree Chithira Thirunal Balarama Varma , popularly known as Sree Chithira Thirunal, was the last ruling Maharaja of the Princely State of Travancore, in southern India until 1949 and later the Titular Maharajah of Travancore ...

. The gallery features a unique collection of traditional and contemporary paintings, including the works of

Raja Ravi Varma Raja Ravi Varma ( ml, രാജാ രവിവർമ്മ; 29 April 1848 – 2 October 1906) was an Indian painter and artist. He is considered among the greatest painters in the history of Indian art. His works are one of the best examples ...

Nicholas Roerich Nicholas Roerich (; October 9, 1874 – December 13, 1947), also known as Nikolai Konstantinovich Rerikh (russian: link=no, Никола́й Константи́нович Ре́рих), was a Russian painter, writer, archaeologist, theosophi ...

Svetoslav Roerich Svetoslav Nikolaevich Roerich (russian: Светослáв or Святослáв Никола́евич Рéрих; 23 October 1904 – 30 January 1993) was a Russian painter based in India. He was the son of Helena and Nicholas Roerich, stud ...

Jamini Roy Jamini Roy ( Bengali: যামিনী রায়) (11 April 1887 – 24 April 1972) was an Indian painter. He was honoured by the Government of India the award of Padma Bhushan in 1954. He remains one of the most famous pupils of Aban ...

Rabindranath Tagore Rabindranath Tagore (; bn, রবীন্দ্রনাথ ঠাকুর; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengali polymath who worked as a poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer and painter. He resh ...

V. S. Valiathan Vattaparambil Sankaran Valiathan (October 1919 – 21 June 2006), commonly referred to as Artist V. S. Valiathan, was an Indian artist from Pandalam, who was known for his classical style of painting in the Raja Ravi Varma tradition. His paintin ...

C. Raja Raja Varma C. Raja Raja Varma was an Indian painter and the youngest brother of the painter Raja Ravi Varma. He was known as a plein-air artist. He acted as assistant, secretary, and business manager to his brother. Life Varma was also an English langua ...

, and K. C. S. Paniker. There are approximately 1100 paintings at the gallery.

Overview

The art gallery has on display works from the Mughal, Rajput, Bengal, Rajastani, and Tanjore schools of art. It also has an oriental collection of

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

ese, and

Bali Bali () is a province of Indonesia and the westernmost of the Lesser Sunda Islands. East of Java and west of Lombok, the province includes the island of Bali and a few smaller neighbouring islands, notably Nusa Penida, Nusa Lembongan, and Nu ...

nese paintings,

Tibet Tibet (; ''Böd''; ) is a region in East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are some other ethnic groups such as Monpa people, ...

Thangka A ''thangka'', variously spelled as ''thangka'', ''tangka'', ''thanka'', or ''tanka'' (; Tibetan: ཐང་ཀ་; Nepal Bhasa: पौभा), is a Tibetan Buddhist painting on cotton, silk appliqué, usually depicting a Buddhist deity, scene, ...

, and unique collections of Indian mural paintings from pre-historic times. Other items of interest include miniatures from different parts of the world, reproductions of murals of Ajanta,

Bagh Bagh ( fa, باغ, link=no, meaning "garden") may refer to: Places India * Bagh Caves in Madhya Pradesh, India * Bagh, Dhar, a town in Madhya Pradesh, India Iran * Bagh, Ardabil, a village in Ardabil Province * Bagh, Larestan, a village ...

Sigiriya Sigiriya or Sinhagiri (''Lion Rock'' si, සීගිරිය, ta, சிகிரியா/சிங்ககிரி, pronounced see-gi-ri-yə) is an ancient rock fortress located in the northern Matale District near the town of Dambulla ...

, and Sittannavasal, and

manuscript A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand – or, once practical typewriters became available, typewritten – as opposed to mechanically printing, printed or repr ...

s of archival importance. The gallery houses 400-year-old Tanjore miniature paintings. The gallery has 15 original works by the Roerichs and 43 original works by Raja Ravi Varma. Ravi Varma's rare pencil sketches are also displayed at the gallery. The paintings of Ravi Varma which were earlier kept at ''Chithralaya'' in

Kilimanoor Kilimanoor is a panchayat and a town in the Chirayinkeezhu taluk of Trivandrum district in Kerala, India. It is located on MC/SH 1 Road, North-west of the city of Thiruvananthapuram (Trivandrum), 14 km east of Attingal and east of Var ...

were given to the art gallery by the

Kilimanoor Palace Kilimanoor Palace is a palace located in Kilimanoor, in the Indian state of Kerala. It is the birthplace of painter Raja Ravi Varma and Raghava Varma, the father of king Marthanda Varma. The Palace The Palace complex covers more than six hectare ...

as a permanent loan in 1941. The palace originally handed over 70 Ravi Varma paintings but some of them are not on display at the art gallery due to space constraints. The Kerala government undertook the restoration of Ravi Varma paintings in 2005. Ravi Varma's masterpiece paintings ''Shakuntala'' and ''Damayanti Talking to a Swan'' are displayed at the gallery. In 2010, the gallery was closed for renovation as fire broke out due to a

short circuit A short circuit (sometimes abbreviated to short or s/c) is an electrical circuit that allows a current to travel along an unintended path with no or very low electrical impedance. This results in an excessive current flowing through the circuit ...

In 2013, some paintings of C. Raja Raja Varma were reported damaged due to moisture. This included the paintings ''Secundarabad Lake'', ''Local Toddy Shop'', and ''

Himalaya The Himalayas, or Himalaya (; ; ), is a mountain range in Asia, separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The range has some of the planet's highest peaks, including the very highest, Mount Everest. Over 100 ...

''. Nine oil paintings and one water colour painting of Ravi Varma are dumped in the store room for lack of space. This included the paintings ''Lady Swinging'', ''Mysore Khedda'', ''Sreerama Break the Bow'', ''Two Horses'', ''Procession'', ''Portrait Study'', and ''Butterfly''. The Kilimanoor Palace had lodged an official complaint that some of the paintings it handed over to the art gallery were missing. Due to the space constraint, a new building was proposed for the gallery and foundation stone was laid in 1985, but the work did not progress.

References

External links

About Sree Chitra Enclave
* {{authority control Art museums and galleries in India Tourist attractions in Thiruvananthapuram Art museums established in 1935 1935 establishments in India Art galleries established in 1935 Arts of Kerala