The Odessa Museum of Fine Arts occupies the Pototsky Palace on Sofiyivska Street, one of the finest 19th-century buildings in the city. Founded in 1899, it is the oldest art museum in Ukraine and holds a significant collection of Russian and Ukrainian paintings from the 18th to 20th centuries, including works by Aivazovsky, Repin, and several Odessa-born painters of the late Soviet period.
The building itself is worth seeing — a grand neoclassical mansion with formal interiors that give some sense of how the wealthy merchant class of the Russian Empire furnished their homes. The permanent collection is strong on marine painting (Aivazovsky's Black Sea scenes are among the best in Ukraine) and on 19th-century portraiture.