Academy of Fine Arts

Academy of Fine Arts is a non-government cultural institution on which was established in 1933. The first president of the academy was Maharaja Prodyot Kumar Tagore from his early childhood he was familiar with the vast and variegated art collection of his family. The academy was under the stewardship of this keen art connoisseur for long ten years. The academy then had no building of its own. Its annual exhibition was held in the Indian Museum building on chowringhee road. The activities of the academy were limited to holding an annual exhibition and occasionally organizing exhibitions of guest artists or old masters till its own building went up on no.2, cathedral road. The academy’s own building on cathedral road was completed in 1960. In the fifties, at the invitation of the then Prime Minister, Shri Jawaharlal Nehru, Yehudi Menuhin, the celebrated violinist, visited India. At his concert at the new Empire Theatre, Calcutta, there was a discussion between Shri Nehru and Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy. It was felt that there should be an art gallery In Calcutta to show contemporary paintings and sculptures etc, to distinguished visitors. Dr. entrusted lady Ranu Mukherjee with the task to choose centrally situated land for that purpose. Dr. Roy sent his home secretory and police commissioner to assist lady Mukherjee to choose a suitable site. The present site was chosen by her. The trusted of the academy built the premises of the academy during 1959-60 with funds donated by her husband, Sir Biren Mukherjee, who was a son of sir Rayen Mukherjee, the most famous industrialist in India in those years. Sri Biren Mukherjee was the first chairman of the academy’s Board of Trusted. The Academy started its journey in the new building with an exhibition of fifty paintings by Nandalal Bose on 11th September 1960.