Joint Resolution № 245 from 20.10.1943 of Council of People's Comissars of Buryat-Mongol Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic and a bureau of Buryat Regional Committee of All-Union Communist Party(b) has decreed to open in Ulan-Ude the State Museum of Art.

    The works of Buryat artists served as a basis of funds of a Museum. The first exposition of a museum opened in January, 1946. The original works of well-known Russian artists of the close of XVIII - the beginning of XX centuries were coming as a gift to the Museum from the State Russian museum (Saint Petersburg) since 1947. In 1966 the Republican Museum of Art was given the name of T.S.Sampilov, the founder of professional art in Buryatia, the national artist of Buryatiya, the Honored Art Worker of RSFSR.

    The general area of a museum is 3051,9 m2, exposition area is 1412,6 m2, funds area is 659,8 m2. In the Republican Museum of Art after T.Sampilov there are on the books (for 01.10.2009): basic assets - 9281 subjects, including: paintings - 2191, graphic works - 3605, sculptures - 226, arts and crafts subjects - 2261, silver-works - 998, scientific- subsidiary fund - 136 units of issue.

    The basic kinds of activity of the Museum: exhibition; stock; restoration; research; scientific-educational; publishing; cultural-mass; information and advertising. The Museum of Art is not only storehouse of art values, but also the research centre which studies and propagandizes the fine arts. One of the major areas of museum work is the exhibition work which carries out important international, inter-regional and local exhibition projects. The department of scientific-educational work plans and has already executed a set of social-significant projects for children of preschool and school age, students of lycea, colleges and universities, military men, retired people, veterans and tourist groups. The Museum after T.S.Sampilov is engaged in publishing. It publishes booklets, catalogues of exhibitions, cards and placards.

    The trade mark of a museum represents a silhouette of a man with lasso from the work of the same name by T. Sampilov. The image of a man with lasso embodies the optimistic tendency for the light future. The design of a trade mark was developed by Balzhinima Dorzhiev, the Honoured Artist of Russian Federation