Art Gallery

The Art Gallery at Kozhikode is contributed solely for the cause of ‘painting and painters’! Housed in a building near to Pazhassirajah Museum, the gallery is renowned for its collections of the veteran painter ‘Raja Ravi Varma’. These painting, depicting the simplicity and depth of Keraliltes, are the major pull factor that attracts a good number of art aficionados to this gallery.



A veritable treasure trove for historians and connoisseurs of art, the Pazhassiraja Museum is located in Kozhikode - the land of spices which lured navigators from time immemorial down to the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama in 1498. The Pazhassi Raja Museum & Art Gallery adjacent to the museum displays the acclaimed paintings of Kerala's cherished artists, Raja Ravi Varma (1848 - 1906) whose works brought international repute to the State and his uncle Raja Raja Varma.

The museum is managed by the State Archaeology Department and has on display mural paintings, antique bronzes, ancient coins, models of temples, umbrella stones, dolmenoid cists (quadrangular burial chambers with capstones), and similar megalithic monuments. For more information on Ravi Varma's works, refer 'The prince among painters and a painter among princes' .

The museum and the art gallery are named after the great Pazhassiraja Kerala Varma of the Padinjare Kovilakom of the Kottayam royal family. The famous 'Pazhassi Revolt' (against the British East India Company during the second half of the 1700s) was led by Pazhassiraja. Nicknamed the Lion of Kerala, Pazhassiraja is also credited with introducing guerilla warfare in the hills of Wayanad to resist the increasingly intolerable British colonialism. This great freedom fighter was shot dead in an encounter on 30 November 1805.

Visiting Hours: 0900 - 1630 hrs; Break 1300 - 1400 hrs. Closed on Mondays and other public holidays.

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