Speaking about art galleries of Moscow we must mention the most famous galleries.
The State Tretyakov gallery is one of the best known picture galleries in Russia. It takes its name from its founder Pavel Tretyakov, a Moscow merchant. In the 19th century Tretyakov began to collect Russian paintings. He visited all the exhibitions and art studios and bought the best pictures. Little by little Tretyakov extended his interests and began to collect earlier Russian paintings.
State Pushkin museum of fine art also is one of the famous and largest museum in Russia. The building was built in Greek style by Roman Klein in 1898-1912 to house a museum of fine art, founded by the initiative of professor Ivan Cvetayev. Since 1937 it has been known as the Pushkin museum of fine art. It has one of the world's largest ancient collections of European art. Now the picture gallery has over 2 thousands works of various schools of painting.
The Pushkin museum periodically holds exhibition of the art of various countries and of individual outstanding artist of past and present.