About Us
VMH is an autonomous organization under the Ministry of Culture, Government of India, with a Board of Trustees that is chaired by the Governor of West Bengal and includes leading personalities from the government, judiciary, academia and the art world. The present Secretary & Curator (In-charge) is Shri Samarendra Kumar.
As a museum, the Victoria Memorial Hall’s collection has 29,220 artefacts that encapsulate the history of our country extending over three centuries beginning from the middle of the seventeenth century. The collection includes paintings in oil and watercolour, sketches and drawings, aquatints, lithographs, photographs, rare books and manuscripts, stamps and postal stationery, coins and medals, arms and armour, sculptures, costumes, personal relics and other miscellaneous archival documents.
More than 5,000 paintings of the Bengal School of Art, including prominent works of Abanindranath Tagore, Gaganendranath Tagore, and Jamini Roy among other artists of form a major part of VMH’s collection of paintings. VMH also has a unique collection of paintings by major European artists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries such as Johan Zoffany, George Chinnery, Tilly Kettle, Charles D’Oyly, and Emily Eden among others. It has one of the largest repositories of paintings and engravings by Thomas and William Daniell. The Biplobi Bharat Gallery on the first floor is a tribute to the unsung revolutionary nationalists who fought for India’s independence.
Currently, the Victoria Memorial Hall is the most-visited museum in India and one of the top museums in the world in terms of footfall with the number of visitors exceeding 36 lakhs in FY 2023-24. As the icon of Kolkata, VMH is the most popular tourist destination. The recently launched 3D Projection Mapping show – Kolkata the City of Joy – is the newest attraction of VMH, portraying an encapsulated history of the city.
Apart from maintaining and displaying its permanent collection, the Victoria Memorial Hall also organizes several temporary exhibitions each year, including international ones. It also organizes lectures, seminars, and workshops on art, culture, history, and heritage regularly. Key national and international days are celebrated by organizing various programmes, and proactive participation of students in museum activities.
VMH library, with nearly 16,000 books including some rare ones, is the leading library of art, art history and museum studies in Bengal. Victoria Memorial Hall has a full-fledged Restoration and Conservation Unit, with a well-equipped laboratory. The staff of this unit also provide technical support to other institutions in conservation/restoration, including to several museums in the country specially the North Eastern States.
