Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts

The Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts on Volkhonka Street is Moscow's great collection of non-Russian art, complementing the Tretyakov's Russian focus. The holdings range from ancient Egypt through the Renaissance and into the 19th century, but the collection is most remarkable for its French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings.

The Shchukin and Morozov collections — confiscated after the Revolution and later placed here — include extraordinary holdings of Monet, Renoir, Cézanne, Gauguin, Matisse, and Picasso. The Matisse rooms alone justify a visit. The museum is undergoing a phased expansion; check current opening arrangements before visiting, as some sections may be temporarily closed.

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The museum was founded in 1912 by Ivan Tsvetaev, father of the poet Marina Tsvetaeva, who spent decades assembling casts and copies of famous sculptures as an educational collection. The original museum had very few originals. After the Revolution, it was supplemented with nationalised private collections — including major Impressionist paintings confiscated from two Moscow merchants, Sergei Shchukin and Ivan Morozov, who had assembled the finest collections of French Impressionism outside France.

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