Tomsk Regional Art Museum

The regional state autonomous institution of culture "Tomsk Regional Art Museum" (TOKHM) is the largest center of artistic life of the Tomsk region, where all areas of museum activity are developing. The museum was established on October 1, 1979 by the decision of the Tomsk Regional Executive Committee, began its activity in April 1982.

To date, TOKHM is the only art museum in the Tomsk region. The type of organization was originally defined as a research and educational institution of art history.

Since 1995, the department "Museum of Wooden Architecture" (Tomsk) and two branches have been working at TOKHM: The Chain Art Gallery (Podgornoye village) and the Museum of Arts of the Peoples of the North (Kargasok village). Now the museum funds number about 12,000 works of painting, graphics, sculpture, icon painting, decorative and applied art.

The museum collection includes masterpieces of ancient Russian art, Russian and Western European art, as well as works by modern authors; it contains more than 10,000 items of storage: paintings and graphic works, sculpture, objects of decorative and applied art.

The beginning of the formation of the museum collection dates back to the 1920s, when the section for the protection of monuments of culture and art of Gubnarobraz transferred to the art department of the local history museum about 50 paintings, among them were paintings by V. Surikov, P. Konchalovsky, paintings by Siberian artists. Later, the State Museum Fund received first-class works of Western European masters.

The museum houses the largest collection of works by local artists of the XIX – early XX centuries in Siberia. In 1929, the State Museum Fund and the Tretyakov Gallery transferred the works of the largest Russian artists: V. Tropinin, V. Serov, O. Kiprensky, V. Polenov, L. Kamenev and other painters of the XVIII-XIX centuries. At the same time, drawings and watercolors were received, among them works by F. Malyavin, A. Lentulov.

By the end of 1930, the basis of the collection of the art department of the regional museum of local lore was formed. In the following years it was replenished very modestly. In 1940, the works of P. Svedsky, N. Klodt were purchased in Tomsk, portraits of P. Pleshanov were donated.

With the foundation of the regional art museum, the active acquisition of all sections of the collection began. The museum acquired beautiful works by leading artists of the early XX century – masters of Moscow, Leningrad, artists of the Union republics, as well as leading Siberian and Tomsk authors.