The Kiran Nadar Museum of Art

I heard about this on the grapevine as with all the good things in life and finding it was a bit of an adventure but I did find it and was so excited that I want to tell you all about it.

This is the first private Museum of Art in Delhi. It is owned by Kiran Nadar, the wife of Shiv Nadar of HCL fame. The man who brought computers to India. She has been collecting art, mainly Indian, but not exclusively, for about 25 years and she has had the generosity of spirit and the foresight to share this with us all. KNMA is housed at the moment on the HCL Campus in Noida and its address is Plot 3A Sector 126 Noida. It has been open to the public since January and its opening hours are 10.00 am to 1830 pm all days except Mondays.

The building is modern and cool, elegant and streamlined.

Its the contents that sent me overboard. Indian art as I have never seen it before.Beautifully represented and totally inspirational. I have my moments with modern art and when I visit the Tate Modern I dont always go away feeling satisfied. Today I can honestly say I was satiated, largely due to the wonderful in-depth and fascinating accounts of the artists and their works given to us by Chandrima Nandi the Deputy Manager of the Museum. She brought it all alive, she pointed out the art work that went into individual paintings and told us snippets about the artists and their lives. It was like being part of a show you didnt want to end though our backs hurt and we were starving.

She talked about Peter Jung's beautiful vessels from China, Anjolie Ela Menon's Woman on a Threshold -is she about to enter or exit from her life ? Rashid Rana's exquisite minatures of pictures put so artfully together to create an illusion of a very different form. NS Harsha's Nations in 2007 depicting stencilled sewing machines and the flags of the whole world.The old age splendour of Raji Ravi Varma, the first commercial artist who was painting for aristocratic families using western influences as far back as 1894. That contrasted with the splendid works of M F Husain and the stellar forms of Anish Kapoor.

Neither words, nor pictures can capture the true essence of the artwork which is varied, stunning and inspirational. Go and savour this Indian gem for yourselves.