Art Galleries of Nepal: Directory of Public and Private Galleries

Nepal's fine-art scene is concentrated in the Kathmandu Valley, which holds the great majority of the country's galleries, exhibition halls and art museums. These venues span a wide range: state-run museums that preserve classical religious painting and sculpture, semi-public councils that host rotating exhibitions, and private or artist-run galleries that promote modern and contemporary work. Together they form the backbone of the professional art circuit for painters, sculptors, paubha (traditional Newar scroll painting) artists and photographers.

For visitors and students, the practical map is simple. Kathmandu city holds the Nepal Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA) in Naxal and the Nepal Art Council at Babarmahal, along with commercial galleries scattered around Baber Mahal Revisited, Durbar Marg and Thamel. Lalitpur (Patan) hosts several long-running private spaces such as Park Gallery in Pulchowk. Bhaktapur is home to the National Art Museum inside its Durbar Square palace, the strongest single collection of classical Nepali painting.

This directory groups the country's notable galleries by type, giving the founding year, founder or operator, location and artistic focus for each. Where a venue is best known under a slightly different name (for example, the Nepal Art Council Gallery, or the National Art Gallery / National Art Museum in Bhaktapur), both forms are noted so that searches resolve to the same place.

The Nepal Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA) is the country's apex state body for the visual arts. It was formally established on 31 Chaitra 2066 BS (13 April 2010 AD) under an Act of the legislative parliament, and it began operations two days later, on 15 April 2010. Its creation followed roughly three decades of campaigning by Nepali artists, dating back to around 2036 BS, for an autonomous fine-arts academy separate from the older, literature-focused Nepal Academy.

NAFA is headquartered at Sita Bhawan in Naxal, Kathmandu, a Rana-era palace built in 1929 by Bhim Shamsher for his wife. The academy runs the Araniko Gallery, the Chandra Man Singh Maskey Exhibition Hall and the Bhajuman Conference Hall on the premises, using them to show work by Nepali and international artists and to host the National Fine Art Exhibition and related competitions, workshops and honours.

Because it is a government academy, NAFA also functions as a policy and promotion body: it is organised into departments covering traditional arts, painting, sculpture, architecture and folk arts, handicrafts, and interdisciplinary creative arts. For students and researchers searching for 'NAFA Nepal', it is both an exhibition venue and the official custodian of state honours and grants in the fine-art field.

The Nepal Art Council is one of the oldest and most important exhibition institutions in the country. It was established in 1962 (2019 BS) as a non-profit, public-private organisation to promote Nepali art and artists. King Mahendra was central to its founding; the then Prime Minister Kirti Nidhi Bista served as founding president, the noted art historian and painter Lain Singh Bangdel as general secretary, and Mrigendra SJB Rana as treasurer.

Its gallery stands at Babarmahal in Kathmandu, in a purpose-built complex completed in 1991 and designed by architect Shankar Nath Rimal, with a floor area of about 29,400 square feet (roughly 2,730 square metres). This makes it one of the largest dedicated exhibition spaces in Nepal, and it is a default venue for solo and group shows, art fairs, biennale-style events and photography exhibitions in the capital.

Within the same building, the top floor houses the Bagmati Art Gallery, which holds the Council's permanent collection. It displays traditional works, paubhas, thangkas and portraits alongside original contemporary Nepali paintings and reproductions of works by international master artists. Searchers looking for 'Nepal Art Council' and those looking for 'Bagmati Art Gallery' are therefore pointed to the same Babarmahal address.

Siddhartha Art Gallery is Nepal's best-known private contemporary art gallery. It was founded on 27 September 1987 by the art patron Sangeeta Thapa together with the artist Shashikala Tiwari, and it was conceived as a professional contemporary space and a meeting point for national and international artists. Its founding is often cited as a turning point in the professionalisation of the Nepali contemporary art market.

The gallery first operated from Pratap Bhawan on Kantipath. In 1997 it moved to the Baber Mahal Revisited complex, a restored Rana courtyard near Babarmahal that has since become a hub for design, dining and the arts. From this base the gallery has run a continuous programme of solo and thematic group exhibitions, catalogues and international exchanges.

Over the decades Siddhartha Art Gallery has hosted artists from dozens of countries across South Asia, the Middle East, Europe, East Asia and the Americas, giving Nepali audiences exposure to international contemporary practice while promoting Nepali artists abroad. For anyone searching 'Siddhartha Art Gallery', it remains the reference point for serious commercial contemporary art in Kathmandu.

For classical Nepali painting, the single most important collection is the National Art Museum in Bhaktapur, also referred to as the National Art Gallery. It occupies a wing of the old Royal Palace on Bhaktapur Durbar Square, a UNESCO World Heritage site, and is administered under the Government of Nepal's heritage and archaeology apparatus. It was set up to preserve and exhibit Nepal's traditional religious painting.

The museum's strength is its holdings of paubha scroll paintings and thangkas, tantric cloth paintings, palm-leaf manuscripts, stone inscriptions, metal and wooden votive objects, and sculpture, with individual pieces dating back many centuries. It is widely described as holding several thousand objects, making it the country's premier destination for students of classical and religious Nepali art rather than contemporary work.

Because Bhaktapur Durbar Square charges a heritage entry fee for foreign visitors, access to the museum is generally covered by, or tied to, that Durbar Square ticket rather than a separate gallery charge; exact fees change over time, so confirm current rates locally. The museum pairs naturally with Bhaktapur's nearby Woodcarving and Brass and Bronze museums.

Beyond the flagship institutions, the Valley supports a network of private and artist-run galleries, many long-established. Park Gallery in Pulchowk, Lalitpur, founded by Rama Nanda Joshi in 1970, is among the oldest modern-art spaces in Nepal; it began near Ratna Park and moved to its Pulchowk home around 1975, and it served as an informal school for a generation of leading painters. It remains a non-profit, artist-run venue for modern and contemporary work.

Newer alternative and contemporary spaces have broadened the scene. The Bikalpa Art Center (now the Bikalpa Art Foundation), founded in 2013 in Pulchowk, runs residencies, workshops and exhibitions as an alternative platform for local and international artists, and transitioned to a non-profit foundation in 2022. Other frequently cited contemporary venues include the Kathmandu Contemporary Arts Centre in Patan, and design-forward commercial galleries clustered around Baber Mahal Revisited, Durbar Marg, Thamel and Jhamsikhel.

The Valley also holds specialist art museums that complement the galleries. The Taragaon Museum near Boudhanath documents 50 years of foreign artists', architects' and anthropologists' work in the Valley, while the Patan Museum on Patan Durbar Square is celebrated for its collection of cast-metal and traditional religious art. Together these venues let visitors trace Nepali art from classical paubha through modernism to today's contemporary practice.

Choose a venue by what you want to see. For classical and religious painting (paubha, thangka), head to the National Art Museum in Bhaktapur and the Patan Museum. For the official national programme, national competitions and honours, visit NAFA's Araniko Gallery in Naxal. For large temporary exhibitions and a permanent survey collection, the Nepal Art Council and its Bagmati Art Gallery at Babarmahal is the main stop.

For modern and contemporary Nepali art, and for buying original work, the private and artist-run galleries are the place to start: Siddhartha Art Gallery at Baber Mahal Revisited, Park Gallery in Pulchowk, and the newer alternative spaces. Many of these galleries show rotating exhibitions, so specific shows and opening hours change constantly; check each gallery's own website or social media before visiting.

A note on accuracy: founding years, operators and locations here are drawn from institutional and encyclopedic sources and are durable, but admission fees, opening hours and current exhibitions are not covered because they change frequently. Always confirm entry charges (particularly Durbar Square heritage fees for Bhaktapur) and timings on arrival.