The Gallery of Art from the Countries of Western Europe and America of the 19th and 20th centuries is a new Department within the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts. It opened its doors to the public in August 2006.

The building at 14, Volkhonka St. was previously the left wing of the residence of the Princes Golitsyn in the 17th-19th centuries, which had been built by the St. Petersburg architect, S.I.Chevakinskii, and the Moscow architect, I.P.Zherebtsov. This building was later lent features in the style of Early Classicism by the celebrated architect M.F.Kazakov.

In 1890-1892 it was redesigned to provide rented accommodation and came to be known as "Princes Court". Great Russian artists Vasilii Surikov, Ilya Repin and Leonid Pasternak lived there for many years, as did the composer Alexander Scriabin.

When this building was acquired by the Pushkin Museum, it was completely renovated between 1988 and 1993 in order to house the Department known as the Museum of Private Collections. This carried forward the traditions of the original building, where a picture gallery and Classical "rarities" from the collection of M.A.Golitsyn had been on display for the public.

In this sense the Gallery of Art from the countries of Western Europe and America of the 19th and 20th centuries takes up the torch, since the history of the assembly of its collection is inextricably linked with the history of art collecting in Moscow and the names of such famous patrons of the arts as Sergei Tretyakov, Sergei Shchukin and Ivan Morozov.

Twenty-six of the Museum's galleries contain a wide-ranging collection of works by masters of the 19th and 20th centuries. There are whole galleries devoted to individual trends in European art or to the work of a single artist. In a gallery specially set aside for the purpose there are works by the German school of the early-19th century, represented by Caspar David Friedrich and the "Nazarene" painters. Small galleries enable the public to appreciate, in a new light, well-known works by Eugène Delacroix and Ingres. The Spanish school is represented by Goya. A separate gallery has been set aside for members of the Paris salon dedicated to the work of J. Jerome, P. Delaroche and E.L.Izabe Works by French landscape painters Corot and the artists of the Barbizon school - Théodore Rousseau, Jules Dupré, Diaz de la Pena and Charles-François Daubigny seem almost predestined for the interiors of this Museum. Canvases by Gustave Courbet, Jean Millet and Honoré Daumier further enhance this panorama of French realist art.

Pride of place in this gallery is assigned to the painting of French impressionists, post-impressionists and masters from the early-20th century: Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley, Camille Pissarro, Edgar Degas, Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, members of the "Nabis" group, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, André Derain and Henri Rousseau.. In a new display it is possible to find works by representatives of other European schools as well and also works of American painters. Alongside canvases by Kandinsky, Chagall and Georgio de Chirico hang pictures by Achille Funi, Karl Hofer, Felice Casorati, H. Grundig, F. Beringer and Rockwell Kent. Works by major European sculptors are also on display – Barye, Rodin, Maillol, Bourdelle, Ossip Zadkine and Hans Arp.