At a meeting in the Cape Town Public Library, convened on 12 October 1850, proposals were discussed to erect a building in the Company's Garden for the purpose of exhibiting art.

[1] This occasion was the inaugural meeting of the South African Fine Arts Association, founded by Thomas Butterworth Bayley and Abraham de Schmidt.

[1] In 1875, the Association was able to purchase premises in the current Queen Victoria Street where the nucleus of the Art Gallery was exhibited.

[1] The National Gallery Act made provision for the building of new premises, but foundations were only laid in 1914.

The collection was kept in a wing of the South African Museum from 1900 and the current building only officially opened to the public on 3 November 1930, by the Earl of Athlone.