Karnataka Chitrakala Parishath

Karnataka Chitrakala Parishath is a fine-arts institute and museum on Kumara Krupa Road in High Grounds, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India. It was founded in 1960 by the artist M. S. Nanjunda Rao to promote art education and to give artists a public platform, and it has since grown into a college of fine arts, a set of exhibition galleries and a museum, all in a leafy campus. It represents the modern period in Karnataka's art history. The museum holds several collections, the best known being the Roerich collection, which includes paintings by the Russian artist Nicholas Roerich and his son Svetoslav Roerich, who settled near Bengaluru. Alongside it are folk art and craft collections, such as Mysore and Tanjore paintings, wooden and ivory objects, puppets, textiles and masks, and a gallery of contemporary Indian art with works by Karnataka and national artists. The galleries are arranged mostly by theme and collection rather than in strict chronology, so visitors move between the Roerich rooms, the folk-art displays and the contemporary spaces. The Parishath also stages regular exhibitions in its own gallery spaces and hosts the annual Chitra Santhe, a large open-air art fair on Kumara Krupa Road that draws crowds each January. The buildings are a mix of institutional blocks and older structures, and their condition is generally good, with ongoing maintenance by the trust. A visit usually takes 90 minutes to two hours. Ticket prices are modest, and the galleries are closed on some public holidays. Visitors interested in painting can also see artists at work on campus, and the location is close to Vidhana Soudha and Cubbon Park.