The Grade I listed Art Deco building[1] was designed by Robert Atkinson in the 1930s and opened in 1939 by Queen Mary.

[4] The institute is located 5 km southwest of the city centre at the East Gate of the university campus and has one of the outstanding collections of art assembled in Britain in the 20th century, including works by Gwen John, André Derain, Fernand Léger, René Magritte and Egon Schiele.

[8] [9] The collection is full of famous works by artists such as Vincent van Gogh, Claude Monet, Auguste Rodin, J. M. W. Turner and Rubens, displayed in spacious and elegant galleries on the first floor of the institute.

The Renaissance is represented by masterpieces by Sandro Botticelli, Giovanni Bellini, Veronese and Simone Martini (e.g. his St John the Evangelist of 1320), the 17th century by artists including Rubens, Van Dyck, Poussin and Murillo.

The collections of French Impressionism and Post-Impressionism include artworks by Degas, Monet, Renoir, Van Gogh and Gauguin.

There is also a fine collection of sculpture (including works by Rodin and Degas), Old Master prints and drawings, portrait miniatures and objets d'art.

In 2013 the gallery acquired an important and commanding late work by Sir Joshua Reynolds: Maria Marow Gideon (1767–1834) and her Brother William (1775–1805), and in 2015 acquired George Bellows' Miss Bentham (1906), its first American painting, and only the second of Bellows' paintings to enter a public collection in the United Kingdom.