Sevastopol Picture Gallery was opened on November 6, 1927. It was created on the basis of the Yalta Folk Art Museum (opened in December 1920. on the basis of nationalized private collections, palace collections Livadia Palace, collections of Prince Golitsyn in the New World, Princes Baryatinskiye in Uch-Chams, etc.), collections of paintings of the Russian school from the funds of the State Tretyakov Gallery, the Central Museum of Tauris and disbanded in 1926 Rumyantsev Museum. In 1941 the collections of the gallery were taken to the Caucasus, then to Tomsk by its director M. P. Kroshitsky. From 1945 to October 1956 they were exhibited in the Simferopol Art Gallery, and in November 1956 returned to Sevastopol. The building, which has housed the gallery since 1958, amazes with a huge amount of decoration, details of different eras and styles (built in 1899). It is one of the few buildings that survived in the city during the war.
In 1965 the gallery was named Sevastopol Art Museum. Its collection is one of the best in Ukraine: it contains more than 4 thousand works of fine art.
There are three departments: Western European, Russian and Ukrainian pre-revolutionary and Soviet art. The collection of Western European art is represented by works by artists of the XVI-XIX centuries. Italy, Holland, Flanders, France and Germany. The paintings «Madonna and Child» by an unknown artist of the Florentine school of the early 16th century, «Peasant’s Breakfast» by an unknown Venetian of the circle J. Bassano, «The Holy Family» by Neapolitan L. Giordano, French artists C. Lefebvre, G. Robert, A. Rank and others stand out. Widely represented in the collection of Dutch and Flemish still life, «small Dutch».
The department of Russian and Ukrainian pre-revolutionary art includes works by V. Tropinin, M. Vorobyov, S. Galaktionov, I. Hrypky, T. Neff, V. Orlovsky.
The exposition devoted to the art of the second half of the XIX century demonstrates the works of the artists of the early movement: V. Makovsky, I. Kramsky, I. Levitan, I. Shishkin, V. Polenov. The pride of the collection is the painting «In the Corridor of the District Court» by N. Kasatkin (in 1900 it was exhibited at the World Exhibition in Paris and was awarded a silver medal). There are also works by outstanding masters I. Repin, I. Aivazovsky, V. Vereshchagin, V. Serov, M. Nesterov, A. Benois, A. Vasnetsov, A. Arkhipov, K. Korovin.
The exposition of the Soviet department begins with works by artists of the older generation — N. Terpsikhorov, K. Yuon, V. Baksheyev, S. Malyutin, V. Bialynitsky-Biruli, N. Samokish, K. Bohayevsky and others. 
The museum has works by E. Steinberg, A. Kuprin, M. Voloshin, K. Petrov-Vodkin, P. Konchalovsky, A. Deineka.
In recent years, the museum collection has been enriched with works by Crimean and partly Sevastopol artists: Honored Artists of the Ukrainian SSR G. Brusentsov and V. Kovalenko; 3. Kovalenko; 3. Filippov, E. Arefiev, P. Miroshnichenko, M. Afanasyev, V. Bernadsky, A. Sukhorukikh, N. Vasilenko, P. Kolomiytsev, L. Melnikov, M. Chukhlantsev, A. Shorokhov.
In the halls of the museum are exhibited works of masters of sculpture — S. Konenkov, I. Ginzburg; Crimean sculptors L. Smerchinsky, R. Serdyuk, S. Chizh, A. Belostotsky, V. Gordeev and others.
The collection of graphics includes more than 2 thousand sheets. Among them: I. Aivazovsky, I. Repin, A. Beggrov, A. Orlovsky, M. Vrubel, M. Voloshin, I. Kramskoy, V. Favorsky.
The staff of the museum widely promotes the artistic heritage of the past and the work of Soviet artists. The collections have been exhibited at many exhibitions (including international ones).
About 75 thousand people visit the museum annually. Excursions, musical evenings devoted to significant dates in the life of artists, with the participation of actors and musicologists are organized.