Togliatti Art Museum (originally Togliatti Picture Gallery) was opened in 1987 - year when the city celebrated its 250th anniversary. At first it was only a branch of the Kuybyshev Art Museum. A lot of remarkable people have been working during its early years: Anneta Jakovlevna Bass, - Head of the Kuybyshev Art Museum, Leonid Stanislavovoch Pakhuta - head of the city executive Culture Department, Gerald Borisovich Krivoshchekov - he was the first director of the Togliatti Picture Gallery and Peter Petrovich Olfert he become the head of the Togliatti Picture Gallery afterwards. In 1992 Picture gallery achieved self-sufficiency and was renamed in the municipal organization of culture- Togliatti Art Museum (ÒÌA).

    The major purpose of the museum is gathering collection of modern art of the XX-ÕÕI centuries, fine art preservation of the second half of the XX c., that is Fine Arts 70-80s (USSR period) and 90s (period of Russia).

    Togliatti Art Museum is based on the ground floor of the domestic house which was built in the 70s. The total area is 861,5 sq.m., the area of an exposition - 415 sq.m. There is a special lection hall in the museum for making lectures about world fine arts.

    From the beginning museum started its work in two main directions - gathering of its collection and making art exhibitions. At the present time museum collection includes more than 8.000 works of painting, graphic, sculpture, decorative and fine art works. Most of them belong to the second part of the XX c. Collection is based on works of painting and graphic which were given to the museum by Union of Artists and The republican center of art exhibitions and propagation of the fine arts of the Ministry of culture of RSFSR. Owing to this the collection of ÒÌA's paintings includes works of such artists as A.Aslamazjan, L.I.Tabenkin, D.A.Nalbandjan, N.N.Brandt, M. K. Kantor, M. P. Konchalovsky. Collection of graphic has etchings by S.M. Nikireev, autolithographies by E.B.Bernstein, illustrations to the "Story of the Passing Years" by M. M. Macheva. Collection also includes 50 works of Chinese graphic which were presented to the museum by Loyang house of artists. Museum have interesting collection of art glass and children's paintings as well.

    In 2005 a board of guardians was created in the museum. With its help many interesting exhibitions from leading museums of the country have been shown in Togliatti, such as: "the Northern capital" - an exhibition from St.-Petersburg, "From Dourer up to Goya. Three centuries of the European engravings" - an exhibition from the collection of Irbitsky state museum of the fine arts, Zurab Tsereteli's exhibition (Moscow), "Italian art of the XX century " (Kirov), "An Exhibition of the Chinese artists " (Loyang), an exhibition of the school of S.Andrijaki (Moscow).

    The museum is the heart of an art life of the city. Since 1997 it arranges an art contest "Rainbow" among children from 3 to 14 years old. The best works goes to the museum fund. For adult artists TMA organize a contest "The Art Work of the year ", where independent jury choose a winner in following nominations: "painting", " graphic arts", "sculpture", "decorative and applied arts"