The museum holdings consist of over 1,900 works of art - paintings, sculptures, drawings and prints, mainly by Croatians but also by other well-known international artists in the genre.

[1] The museum is located on the first floor of the 18th-century Raffay Palace, 350 square metres (3,800 sq ft), in Gornji Grad at Sv.

[7] From the very beginning the establishment was organized and run according to strict museological principles, and is deemed to be the world's first museum of naive art.

An identifiably individual style and poetic nature distinguishes the Naïve from other "amateur" painters and sculptors, and from the general self-taught artist.

Such characteristics are the expression of a free creative imagination, in a similar way to other 20th-century art movements such as Symbolism, Expressionism, Cubism, and Surrealism.

The renowned Ivan Generalić was among the first of the naive painters in Croatia to develop a distinctive creative style, and achieve a high professional standard in his art.

Other artists from the first generation of the Hlebine school include Franjo Mraz, a contemporary of Generalić, and Mirko Virius, who came to renown a few years later.

The painter Ivan Lacković Croata, known for twilight scenes and distinctive, melancholic elongated landscapes, is considered one of the most brilliant and remarkable draughtsmen in naïve art.

The work of Emerik Feješ is an example of urban Naïve, with themes of exclusively city scenes and architecture characterized by geometrical composition and vivid, expressive use of colour.