Amar Mahal Museum and Library.......................Galleries

Amar Mahal Museum & Library, placed in a picturesque setting of Himalayas, is an epitome of royal grandeur and magnificence.

The Art Galleries of the Amar Mahal aim to promote Indian art and artists. They present a splendorous picture in informal surroundings. The galleries are endowed with ethnicity with a soft touch of contemporary art setting, Indian and otherwise.
Thousands of people have passed through the doors of these galleries to view the works of various Indian artists on display. The collection of paintings range over different styles. These include Kangra style of Indian miniatures paintings. The contemporary collection includes works of renowned artists like M.F. Hussain, J.Swaminathan, G. R. Santosh, Bikash Battacharjee, Ram Kumar, Laxman Pai and many others.

Nala Damayanti Gallery

This gallery has on display a set of forty-seven exquisite paintings made in the world famous style of Indian miniature painting that came up in the late eighteenth century, known as Kangra Ki Kalam. Dr. B. N. Goswamy, a noted art historian, in a descriptive catalogue on this collection, calls it a style of great refinement and elegance. According to him, Nala and Damayanti was one of the ‘new’ texts that were chosen by the Kangra artists for illustrations. The story of Nala and Damayanti is an ancient one. As a legend, it gets referred to in Ramayana, Vajasaneyi Samhita and in the Satpatha Brahmana. There is a mention of it in many Puranas. In the Vanaparvan of the Mahabharata, the story appears as Nalopakhayana However, the most famous of the poems on the theme remains the great Kavya of Naisadhacarita of twelfth century. The paintings in the AMML's collection have been identified as illustrations of Naisadhacarita. Scholars believe these paintings to be the most important of the painted material on the theme as this collection visually narrates the love of Nala and Damayanti and stops at Damayanti’s Svayamvara (wedding ceremony). The rest of the story is believed to have been continued in the set of line drawings now in the collection of Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The paintings and the drawings in the collections of the AMML and MFA, Boston are the only documentary evidences that contradict the hitherto generally accepted assumption that the story of the Nala and Damayanti was never illustrated in its entirety.

Contemporary Art Galleries

In these galleries, works of art by the eminent contemporary artists of India are on display. The collection of oil paintings, water colours, drawings and prints reflects the avid interest that Dr. Karan Singh has in art which often acts as an interface between the traditional and the contemporaneous. As he opines, "Not only has our artistic expression varied from period to period along the time scale, but within the same historical period different regions have excelled in one or other form of artistic expression. The total impact of entire process puts India in the first rank of nations who have evoked and concretised the innate human urge for the artistic expression in a sustained manner". The collection includes works of renowned artists like M.F. Hussain, J. Swaminathan, G. R. Santosh, Bikash Battacharjee, Ram Kumar, Laxman Pai and many others. Some of the paintings and sculptures from this collection have been exhibited in major exhibitions in India and abroad.

Dash-Avatar Gallery

Dash-Avatar Gallery has eleven oil paintings based on the unique theme of reincarnations of Lord Vishnu, the Hindu deity revered as the preserver of life, by the artist Jaswant Singh. Each painting depicts the incarnation of Vishnu chronologically as described in the Vishnu Purana (a Hindu religious text). The paintings are not only unique in their theme but also in the way the artist has rendered the allegories. They evoke a feeling of surrealism in the viewer, thus making the collection all the more interesting.