The Gujarat Museum Society was formed as Public Charitable Trust way back in 1960 to aesthetically exhibit the renowned N.C. Mehta Collection of miniature paintings. For this purpose the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation was kind enough to allot a portion of the first floor of the famous Sanskar Kendra building at Paldi, designed by Le Corbusier

Shri Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, inaugurated the exhibition in the year 1963. The late Nanalal C. Mehta (1894 - 1958) was one of the pioneers in the field of Indian Miniature Paintings. A member of Indian Civil Service, Nanalal had the eye of an aesthete, the perception of antiquarian and a sound background of Sanskrit and Hindi literature. He published his researches through several books and articles, and brought to light several new documents of Indian and Gujarati paintings like the Vasanta Vilasa scroll, Early Gita-Govinda, folios of Chaurapanchashika series, of which the latter is the pride possession of N.C. Mehta Collection.