The National Gallery of Modern Art (ngmaindia.gov.in; adult/child ₹500/free) is a must-visit for anyone interested in Indian art and its cultural impact both internationally and at home. The old wing, housed in the gracious warren of rooms of Jaipur House, holds the Routes & Roots exhibition, where modern displays in English explore India's influential languages of representation with symbols such as the lotus, yoga chakras, Buddhist mudras and the written language of Sanskrit.
The new wing's In the Seeds of Time exhibition charts the development of Indian modernism in chronological order. The first gallery contrasts Mughal miniatures with Orientalist European paintings; then spirals up the floors through the 19th and 20th centuries, as artists responded to both Western expressionism and the freedom movement at home. You'll come out somewhere in the 1980s with strong experimentation and abstraction. The collection includes important works by the Bengal School, the Calcutta Progressive Group, and superstars such as Rabindranath Tagore, Jamini Roy and Amrita Sher-Gil. Free curator-led tours are held at 10.30am, 1.30pm and 3pm; as with most major Delhi museums and some monuments, it's shut on Mondays. Photography is prohibited.
