Gallery Sanskriti is the brainchild of art promoter and collector Ambica Beri, who started it in 1990 in an exclusive residential area in Alipore. This 7,500 sq. ft. gallery has held pan-continental shows with some of the leading artists of the country. Padmashree awardees and famous artists like Laxma Goud, Akbar Padamsee, Yusuf Arakkal, Paresh Maity, Sunil Das, Anjolie Ela Menon and Jaysri Burman have held shows at the gallery. Gallery Sanskriti has been primarily associated with Bengal artists like Ganesh Pyne, Bikash Bhattacharjee, Jogen Chowdhury, Ganesh Haloi and Paritosh Sen for decades. It has organized numerous workshops – three in a year -- in Madhya Pradesh since 1997 with national and international art personae.

The Gallery has held over 100 solo exhibitions of senior and established artists. Exhibitions in Indonesia (2002 and 2003), Shanghai (2004), New York (2006), Singapore (2009) & London (2010).

It has been at the forefront in facilitating International Art Exchanges and has fostered the growth of Indian Art abroad by sending artists on International Cultural Exchange Programmes to the UK, US, Italy, France and Indonesia.

It has published 5 major Art Coffee Table Books on renowned artists under the Gallery Sanskriti Publication banner and has documented and catalogued every exhibition and innumerable artist’s individual works.

Having hosted and facilitated national and international workshops and through Beri’s interaction with artists, craftsmen and other professions,  a multi-dimensional residency and art center in Maihar, Madhya Pradesh has been parallelly created by her.   Called Art Ichol, it is an art center with India’s first open-air studio for artworks in stone, metal, wood, clay and fiberglass. Amaria  is the writer’s retreat next to a river, and there is also a heritage residency and ceramic studio. Art Ichol is a commune in the midst of nature where painters and installations and ceramicists, photographers, curators, poets, textile artists, gallerists, journalists from different disciplines, art critics and musicologists, can all come and interact and create.

Address: 5C, Alipore Park Rd, Calcutta 700027; Phone: 033 2448 4925

Gallery Rasa

Gallery Rasa is being positioned to be the hub of everything creative, be it art, crafts and books. Owned by Rakesh and Radhika Sahni, it is a three-storied building space in New Alipore wherein they showcase the best in the world of art and allow for discussions and interactions to thrive.

Rakesh has been a consultant in Indian Contemporary Art for the last twenty-one years and Radhika has successfully managed their first foray into crafts called Reflections. This is a gallery that attempts to bring together all their strengths under one roof.  The inauguration of the gallery and the book shop in June 2006 coincided with the opening of an exhibition “The Bengal Connection” featuring three generations of sculptors.

Gallery Rasa has a very rich archive on Indian Contemporary and Modern art comprising a wide collection of books, journals, catalogues, artist correspondences and visual images. The present endeavor of the gallery is to showcase the archive through it's website, currently being revamped.

Some of the exhibitions curated by Rakesh Sahni have been Sculptures: The Bengal Connection; Ramendranath Chakravorty (1902-1955): a Retrospective of his Graphic Prints; Jyoti Bhatt: Photographs 1959-1994;The Graphic World of M.F.Husain.

Address: 828/1, Block P, Alipore, Calcutta 700053, Phone: 033 2400 7348

The Experimenter gallery was envisioned and started by Prateek & Priyanka Raja in 2009. It goes outside the expected imperatives of the art market, highlighting instead experimental and alternative artists from all over the world.

With an ambitious and challenging multidisciplinary approach, Experimenter mounts interactive installations, multiple channel work, live projects and political interventions that question the fraught and kinetic era we live in. Housed in a 1930’s heritage building in Kolkata, India, the sunken courtyard of the original building is a central feature of the space, used by artists for large installations, performances and talks that accompany wall and floor based works. Its program has stirred a huge interest in the art viewing community all over the world within a short span of time. Within the first year of its existence, the gallery was described by an international art blog as “an example to others that are sure to follow in terms of quality of presentation, risk taking and conceptualization of programming and intent”.

Experimenter represents and manages the careers of some of the most exciting and celebrated contemporary artists from South Asia and the rest of the world whose practices are exhibited at some of the most crucial international exhibitions and museums worldwide. It participates in major international art fairs in Europe, United States, Middle East and Asia.

Its much acclaimed Experimenter Curators’ Hub (ECH) is an annual platform for the foremost minds in contemporary art from all over the world to come together at the gallery to discuss, debate and share curatorial practice and conceptual underpinnings for some of the edgiest exhibitions being mounted in the visual arts. Plans are afoot to build ongoing archive of curator-conversations. ECH is a not for profit extension of the gallery’s program.

Considered to be at the forefront of contemporary art, Experimenter has brought to Kolkata, at times even pioneered, exhibitions of critical international acclaim for India. It was awarded the best contemporary gallery of the year by Forbes India Art Awards in 2014 and the best gallery of the year in 2016 by the India Today Art Awards. Since its inception, Experimenter’s programs have constantly challenged the pre-existing norms in the art world garnering critical acclaim.  It is looked upon as a pacesetter for contemporary practice from the region.

Address: 2/1 Hindustan Road, Calcutta 700029. www.experimenter.in. Phone: 4001 2289

Ganges Art Gallery

Ganges Art Gallery was started by businesswoman and art collector Smita Bajoria, honorary consul for Denmark, and, ever since its inception 8 years ago, it has worked towards a holistic pursuit of artistic evolution and development – both national and international. In a very short span of time, the gallery has been able to consistently showcase works of such doyens of Indian art as Sharbari Roychowdhury and Jogen Chowdhury (to name a few); while at the same time, functioning as a worthy platform for newer talents with a penchant for cutting-edge work. The best example is the life-trajectory of celebrated artist Shahabuddin – whose immense talent was recognised early on and honed and pushed till it took Shahabuddin’s art to the place where it now belongs – a rage among collectors within and far beyond national boundaries. It is one of the few galleries that has also given the city insights into the thriving world of international art, by showcasing the very best from Bangladesh, Pakistan, Iran, Mexico, Italy and Denmark .

Its art-centric gift items where important artist’s works have been replicated, are highly prized by gallery visitors.

Address: 33A, Jatin Das Road, Desapriya Park, Kalighat, Kolkata, 700029, Landline: 24653212

Chitrakoot Art Gallery, perhaps the oldest art gallery in Calcutta, started out way back in the 1980s at a time when there was no commercial display of art as we see it today. Top artists of the time like Shyamal Dutta Roy, Ganesh Pyne, Bikash Bhattacharya and Amitabh Banerjee, all of them sadly no more, took the initiative to convert the library of the space where Chitrakoot Art Gallery exists, into a gallery displaying modern artists. And ever since then, it has remained a hub, a salon where artists, musicians, art critics, collectors, from India and abroad converge at all times to have their art adda, to discuss and debate and declaim, often to the strains of Pravash Kejriwal’s flute.  The owners, Dr. Prakash and Sumitra Kejriwal, are the moving force behind this gallery, available at all times to advise, assist and chat over a famous Spanish coffee brew.

Most artists of renown have exhibited at this gallery. Its collection of  Bengal art is worth noting, starting from Early Bengal to Masters like Jamini Roy, the Tagores, Nandlal Bose, prominent Bengal school and Bengal artists like Hemen Majumder, Atul Bose, Debiprasad  Roychowdhury and others of their period and their disciples. Chintamoni Kar was a prominent figure to support Chitrakoot, so did Somnath Hore and K.G Subramanian. In the present period of Post Modernism and Installation, Chitrakoot keeps the older line alive and kicking. The gallery is unique in that it has an art library, a restoration department and an art valuation consultancy. It has published valuable volumes of art, some of them by foreign museums, like the coffee table book on Jogen Chowdhury published by Masanori Fukuoka, a frequent visitor to Chitrakoot, from his Glenbarra Art Museum in Japan.

Address: Chitrakoot Art Gallery, 55, Gariahat Rd, Presidency Court, Ballygunge, Calcutta, Phone:  +91 33 2461 8812

Akar Prakar Gallery

Akar Prakar gallery is a beautiful art space, in a verdant residential area of Calcutta. The gallery is on the ground floor of a bungalow with a garden, with an outdoor art display, where many of the discussions and art events are held. Run by Reena and Abhijit Lath, who have brought generations of art insight to this gallery, it is open to all medium of expression, without restricting itself to only paintings. So, from hosting sculpture shows, installations, photography & prints expositions, Akar Prakar strives to make a difference in its projection of contemporary Indian art. This is done not only through its many shows with museums and institutions, but also through its catalogues, art journals and books on important artists.  It has also gone beyond the frontiers of the country and cooperated with kindred organizations, to showcase works of significant artists from India.

In its decade-long existence,  and in order to remain in sync with the trends in the Indian and international art market, the gallery has obtained a foothold in New Delhi via an art advisory set up. The dual intent of the advisory is to bring a new focus on contemporary artists from all over the country, while simultaneously expanding viewership for the existing artists.

The Late S.H. Raza was one of the outstanding artists, with whom, in person, several important shows were held at Akar Prakar and a special tribute was paid by the gallery on his recent demise in the presence of literary cultural critic and former Chairman of Lalit Kala Akademi Ashok Vajpeyi, his close associate.

Address: 238 Hindustan Park, Gariahat, Calcutta. Phone:24643843

Harrington Street Arts Centre

The Harrington Street Arts Centre has gone way beyond being a traditional art gallery. It started just 6 years ago, under the aegis of the Rajpal Khullar Memorial Trust, with Noni Khullar, who also heads up a new age school, Akshar, being the face and energy behind this gallery. This Centre, a large, modern space, occupies a whole floor in a heritage building on Harrington Street, seamlessly affording the brilliant contrasts that you would expect in culture-crazy Calcutta. It aims at building linkages between the art world and a larger community and has, in its short existence, broken down the elitist image of the normal white-cube gallery space.

Some of the top artists who have been exhibited over the years include the Late K.G.Subramanyan, Vivan Sundaram, Raghu Rai, Pablo Bartholomew, Nemai Ghosh, Paresh Maity, Jayashree Burman, Jayashree Chakraborty, Manu Parekh, Laxma Goud, Jogen Chowdhury and the late Jeram Patel. But there have been a range of activities, that span installations, photographic displays, plays that taken audiences through every room to generate multiple experiences, the screening of relevant art films, the engagement with the diplomatic community through cultural exchanges, and the latest, in 2016—Eclectique—an exposition of objects d”Art. A large number of the events are hosted with wine and cheese and amuse bouches to add to the sensory enjoyment of the art. Some wonderful value additions of the gallery are the providing of authentication, restoration and valuation services.

Address: 8, Ho Chi Minh Sarani, (opp The American Consulate, next to ICCR) Suite No. 5 & 25B, 2nd Floor, Kolkata 700071, Ph: (033) 2282 9220 / 2282 9221, Email: thehstreet.artscentre@gmail.com

Gallery Sanskriti is the brainchild of art promoter and collector Ambica Beri, who started it in 1990 in an exclusive residential area in Alipore. This 7,500 sq. ft. gallery has held pan-continental shows with some of the leading artists of the country. Padmashree awardees and famous artists like La