Art for All

Piramal Group Chairman Ajay Piramal and his wife and Group Vice-Chairperson Swati Piramal took their passion for art a step further when they started the Piramal Museum of Art (PMA) at group headquarters in Lower Parel, Mumbai, four years ago. The idea was to blend their love for art with contemporary reality. "Mumbai is so space constrained. There arent too many private galleries to display art," Swati had said while talking about the initiative. The 7,000 sq. ft. museum is now a repository of historic and rare collections of Indian contemporary and modern art collected by the Piramal Art Foundation. The museum has held exhibitions featuring art works of masters such as Abanindranath Tagore, S.H. Raza, K. Ramanujam, K.G. Subramanyan and Raja Ravi Varma, among others.

Now the museum has opened galleries in Piramal's realty projects at Byculla, Kurla and Mulund, along with the 'Piramal Art Residency' at Piramal Vaikunth in Thane. Piramal Ananta in Kurla includes works by F.N. Souza, M.F. Husain, Subodh Gupta and Krishen Khanna and 10 paintings by artist duo Thukral and Tagra representing Dasavatar adorning the stairway of the building. Piramal Aranya in Byculla has a special commission consisting of 26 paintings produced by Thukral and Tagra that depict flora from the nearby Byculla zoo, besides paintings from the Piramal Collection.

The museum organises art engagement programmes with Piramal employees in Mumbai, and in over 40 schools. Over 5,000 students visit the exhibitions each year. PMAs work extends to events, panel discussions and workshops with some of Indias best artists, academics and theorists.