When the museum was founded, the separation to the old masters in the Alte Pinakothek was fixed with the period shortly before the turn of the 19th century, which has become a prototype for many galleries.

Owing to the personal preference of Ludwig I, the museum initially had a strong focus on paintings of German Romanticism and the Munich School.

In 1834 Carl Rottmann traveled to Greece to prepare for a commission from Ludwig I for a cycle of great Greek landscapes.

Hugo von Tschudi was dismissed by Wilhelm II, German Emperor as a penalty for his exhibiting of Gauguin's The Birth of Christ in Berlin's National Gallery.

As general director of the State Collections, Tschudi acquired 44 paintings, nine sculptures, and 22 drawings, mostly from emerging French artists.

In 1938 the Nazi regime under Adolf Hitler confiscated a self-portrait of Vincent van Gogh, classifying the paintings as degenerate art.