A house in disorder

A house in disorder
Fathima Sumaya Khan
A wing of the State Government Museum, Venkatappa Art Gallery, is a one-stop destination for art lovers. the galery is plagued by poor maintenance and calls for attention....

A wing of the State Government Museum, Venkatappa Art Gallery situated on Kasturba Road, is a one-stop destination for art lovers. A heritage building of international repute and a permanent venue for display of art works by legendary artist, K Venkatappa of Mysore, the gallery is also a treasure house of rare art pieces.

An elevator awaits repair.
Photo: Author


You’ll find stone sculptures from the Mathura and Khajuraho schools of art and rare pottery and clay articles from the Indus Valley civilisation.

Apart from this, close to 600 paintings by renowned artists like M F Hussain, Yusuf Arakkal, N S Bendre and K K Hebbar along with C P Rajaram's fabulous wood carvings are on display here.



But sadly Venkatappa Art Gallery is plagued by poor maintenance and calls for attention. Shabby surroundings, poorly ventilated halls, stinking toilets and dysfunctional lifts greet visitors.

The renovation work of the gallery started in October last year but the slow pace of work has left a pile of rubble around because of which visitors are denied access to the first and second floors of the gallery.

The gallery has been granted funds worth Rs 106 lakhs under the 12th Finance Commission for development works. Dr R Gopal, director of the Department of Archaeology and Museums at Mysore said: “There are nine programmes under the four-year plan undertaken by our department to provide different facilities to the gallery. Based on this, renovation work started in October last year. A monthly review of the ongoing work is being done and the report has been submitted to the government.”

When asked about the status of work, Dr Gopal said local officials at the gallery would be able to it was appropriate to seek information about this matter from the local officials at the gallery. On condition of anonymity an official at the gallery revealed that there was no progress in work related to an air-conditioner, replacement of old lifts and construction of new toilets, all of which were supposed to come up in the first phase of work in December last year, three months after the construction began at a cost of Rs 68.50 lakhs.

There are a host of other facilities which are scheduled to come up in the gallery in the next two years which includes painting the entire building, landscaping around the building, electrical repairs and lighting arrangements, providing a reception kiosk, replacement of existing steel windows with aluminium windows and providing screen and seating facility for the auditorium.

But employees of the gallery don’t know how long before all these become a reality. “A number of repair and replacement works are to be carried out in the coming days, but the construction work which began last year is yet to be completed. There is no deadline. No one knows when will it be completed. It will be foolish to think about future programmes,” said an employee.

Will authorities concerned wake up and save this piece of the City’s heritage or let it rot till it dies a slow death?