Speaking about art galleries of Moscow we should mention themost famous galleries.
The State Tretyakov Gallery is one of the best-known picturegalleries in Russia. It takes its name from its founder PavelTretyakov, a Moscow merchant. In the 19th century Tretyakov beganto collect Russian paintings. He visited all the exhibitions andart studios and bought the best pictures. Little by littleTretyakov extended his interests and began to collect earlierRussian paintings.
In 1881 Tretyakov opened his collection in St. Peterburg tothe public, 11 years later he donated it to the city of Moscow. Since then the gallery has received hundreds of paintings from othermuseums and private collections.
The Tretyakov Gallery reflectsthe whole history of Russian paintings from the 11th century to thepresent day.
Also I’d like to tell you about the State Pushkin Museum of FineArts. The building was built in Greek style by Roman Klein in 1898- 1912 to house the Museum of Fine Art, founded by the initiative ofprofessor Ivan Tsvetaev. Since 1937 it has been known as the PuskinMuseum of Fine Art.
It has one of the world’s largest ancientcollections of European art. At present the picture gallerey has over 2thousand works of various schools of painting which helps usto understand and appreciate the variaty of painting styles from over thecenturies.
The Pushkin Museum pereodically holds exhibitions of the artof various countries and of individual outstanding artists of the pastand present.