Krasnoyarsk art Museum named after V. M. Surikov is the largest repository of collections of works of art of the city. The history of the art Museum began in 1921, when the local authorities raised the issue of opening in the city art gallery. Unfortunately, the resolution was not adopted, but on the basis of collections of works of art that were stored since the end of the second half of the XIX century in the city Museum, was organized by the Department of art and art of antiquity, named after V. I. Surikov.

A large number of works of art came from private collections. A huge contribution to the accumulation of works of art made of local gold and a true connoisseur of art P. Kuznetsov. After the revolution the acquisitions of the Museum was engaged in state structures, making the Museum appeared remarkable works of many famous painters, such as Ilya Repin, V. Polenov, V. M. Nesterov, and it's not the whole list of names of artists whose works can be seen today in the national gallery.
After some time, the Museum collection was enriched with works donated by the Ministry of culture of the USSR and the RSFSR, and also Krasnoyarsk branch of the Union of artists of the USSR.

For visiting the Museum was opened in may 1958 with the exposition, consisting of 300 works of Russian and foreign art.

The Museum collection consists of the following sections: Ancient art (all sorts of Church utensils, various icons, copper casting, etc); Russian art of XVIII – early XX centuries (presents works by Ivan Shishkin, Ivan Aivazovsky, A. Bogolyubov, V. Tropinin, Repin, Makovsky, I. Khrutsky, A. Ivanova, I. Kramskoy, and several tens of V. Surikov); the art of the twentieth century (the works of Kandinsky, Yuri Vasnetsov, K. Malevich, L. Popova, I. Grabar, V. Stozharov, Vladimir Lebedev, S. Gerasimov, V. Byalynitsky-Birulya, A. Rodchenko and many others); Decorative-applied and folk art.