The most important part of the museum collection was formed in the Soviet Union time, and features two departments - Russian art before the Russian Revolution of 1917 and Soviet art.

Since 1975, the museum of art is located at the former mansion of merchant Anton Handrin on Alexandrovskaya street 56.

The Realism (arts) of the late 19th century is represented with genre paintings and portraits by Konstantin Savitsky, Konstantin Makovsky, Henryk Siemiradzki, Nikolay Bogdanov-Belsky, Konstantin Makovsky and Vasily Maksimov, landscapes by Alexei Savrasov, Isaac Levitan and Arkhip Kuindzhi, sketches by Viktor Vasnetsov, Vasily Surikov and Vasili Vasilyevich Vereshchagin.

The Soviet art is represented with paintings by several generations of Soviet artists, including Igor Grabar, Aleksandr Gerasimov, Nikolai Petrovich Krymov, Vladimir Stozharov; sculptures by Yevgeny Vuchetich, Matvey Manizer; graphic art by Vladimir Favorsky, Yuri Neprintsev and Andrei Goncharov.

Since 1976 many sepulchral monuments that represented special value as works of art were transferred from abandoned Taganrog Old Cemetery into the museum's inner yard, saving them from destruction.