Museum · Kala Ghoda
CSMVS (Prince of Wales Museum)
The city's great museum, in an Indo-Saracenic building of 1922: sculpture, miniatures, textiles.
Look for: The miniature-painting gallery.
Daily
Go further, look closer.
Cities · Asia · 19°04′N 72°52′E
Mumbai
Colonial Gothic, Art Deco and a gallery scene that has been shaping South Asian modernism since 1947.
Best monthsNovember–February
Art calendarMumbai Gallery Weekend (January) · Kala Ghoda Arts Festival (February)
This guide4 essentials · 6 places off-piste
Essentials
Museum · Byculla
Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum
Mumbai's oldest museum (1855), a Victorian jewel box of the city's history. Reopened in January 2025 after a long renovation, with contemporary art commissions.
Look for: The clay models of Mumbai's trades and people.
Closed Wednesdays
Gallery · Kala Ghoda
Jehangir Art Gallery
A public gallery since 1952, where artists rent rooms by the week: a democratic mix of every kind of Indian painting.
Look for: The steps outside, where artists and buyers still meet.
Free
Gallery · Fort
Chemould Prescott Road
One of India's oldest commercial galleries, founded in 1963, which showed M.F. Husain and Bhupen Khakhar early on and still shapes Indian contemporary art.
Look for: Its archive shows.
Free · closed Sundays
Off the list
Off-Piste in Mumbai
Rooms, ruins and curiosities: the city's other museum.
Architecture · Fort
Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus
Victoria Terminus, the Gothic railway station of 1888, still the busiest in the city.
The carved animals and gargoyles on the façade.
Architecture · Churchgate
The Art Deco of Marine Drive and the Oval
One of the world's largest groups of Art Deco buildings, a UNESCO site with the Victorian buildings facing them across the Oval Maidan.
Walk Marine Drive at sunset.
Sacred site · Malabar Hill
Banganga Tank
An ancient water tank surrounded by temples and steps, hidden in the richest neighbourhood of the city.
Go early morning.
Architecture · Cumballa Hill
Kanchanjunga Apartments
Charles Correa's 1983 tower, with double-height garden terraces cut into its corners against the monsoon and the sun.
Look from Peddar Road.
Interior · Colaba
Regal Cinema
An Art Deco cinema of 1933 by Charles Stevens, Bombay's first air-conditioned picture house.
Catch a film in the main hall.
Architecture · Kala Ghoda
Keneseth Eliyahoo Synagogue
A sky-blue synagogue of 1884 among the galleries, restored in 2019, with stained glass and Victorian woodwork.
The stained glass inside.
Nearby
Elephanta Caves
Rock-cut temples of the 5th–6th century with the great three-headed Shiva, an hour by ferry from the Gateway of India.
If you have one day
CSMVS at opening → the Kala Ghoda galleries → lunch → CSMT → Bhau Daji Lad Museum → Marine Drive at sunset.