The gallery was formally inaugurated in the presence of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru March 29, 1954. Catering to the technical advancements and modern facilities, a new wing which now houses the permanent collection was established in 2009. Another expansive Exhibition Hall which can be moulded in different special divisions, suiting each exhibition, is also an architectural addition to the old campus of Lutyen’s era. The NGMA has two branches, one at Mumbai and the other at Bengaluru. The gallery is a repository of the cultural ethos of the country and showcases changing art forms through the passage of the last hundred and fifty years starting from about 1857 in the field of visual arts.

About the collection: Collaborations with curators from other Institutions are a regular feature in NGMA, New Delhi. Almost all the exhibitions have curators with an expertise in the requisite field. With more than 17,000 works of art in the repository of NGMA, New Delhi, it is distributed artist wise in its register and also according to the accession numbers. NGMA is the largest repository of paintings of Amrita Sher-Gil. Other major collections include masterpieces of Rabindranath Tagore; Abanindranath Tagore; Jamini Roy; M.F. Husain; Company period paintings; Bengal Masters; European Traveller Artists; Collections of Bombay Progressive artists, Delhi Shilpa Chakra, Young Turks with P.T Reddy among others; Krishen Khanna, Jogen Chowdhury, Arpita Singh, Arpana Caur, Manjit Bawa, V.S. Gaitonde, Meera Mukherjee, Subodh Gupta, Atul Dodiya and others of equal importance.

Apart from paintings, NGMA boasts of its rich collections of photographs by Dayanita Singh, Raja Deen Dayal Collection, Raghu Rai among others. A variety of temporary exhibitions celebrating aspects of Art, Design and Architecture are a unique feature of National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi. Apart from it, the permanent collection on display showcases works of art of modern and contemporary masters.