The Tretyakov Gallery

The State Tretyakov Gallery is one of the largest museums of Russian art in the country. Its foundation was laid by the Moscow merchant and industrialist Pavel Tretyakov who amassed an excellent collection of national art and donated it to the city of Moscow in 1892. Intended by its founder to be a museum in which Russian artists of all trends were represented, the Tretyakov Gallery boasts a unique collection of early Russian icons, masterpieces of 18th- and 19th-century painting and most outstanding works by 20th-century Russian and Soviet artists. Today, the State Tretyakov Gallery is a large museum complex with its main building lying on its original site in the center of Moscow, and another one located on Krymsky Val and housing best 20th-century artworks. In English.