Kerala Museum - Oldest Art and History Museum

Kerala Museum, also known as museum of Kerala history, this Museum was the brainchild of Mr. Madhavan Nayar, the late managing trustee of the Madhavan Nayar Foundation. He was a prominent industrialist, philanthropist and a pioneer in the Seafood Export Industry of India. As a student of history, he initiated a sound and light show at this premises about the story of Kerala in 1986. This had become a successful initiative which curated him to develop this museum with the help of the famous sculptor of Kerala, Mr. Karamana Rajagopal.

The museum was inaugurated in 1987, with successive improvements in some years after that. Like any important places in Kerala, the museum is welcomed by a statue of Parasurama, the sage who is said to have created Kerala. The Gallery of Contemporary Indian Art & The Centre for Visual Art are the two main components of the museum. 38 life-sized tableaus tell the story of Kerala through people who were pivotal to the history of this region and cover events over the past 2000 years.

The Gallery, which opened in 1990 consists of the works of 300 odd works of painters and sculptors like Raja Ravi Varma, M.F.Husain, Abanindranath Tagore, Jamini Roy, B. Prabha, Sunil Das etc. The museum also has the space for the Gallery of Miniature Paintings. There is a collection of some 2000 books on art, culture, history and allied topics too. The Centre for Visual Arts offers a variety of gallery spaces on hire for exhibitions, or for the use of conferences, lecture demonstrations, film screenings, theatre productions or even just dialogue. It also displays Indian art’s original mural reproductions that are larger than life.