The museum houses a unique collection of the work of artists of St. Petersburg. The museum was established in January 2016 as a branch of the Manege Central Exhibition Hall. The collection has more than 3,000 items, covering the entire Petrograd-Leningrad-St. Petersburg period in the history of arts. It includes works of different styles and trends, created in the city in the course of two centuries: from the avant-garde of the 1920s, post-WW-II Socialist Realism, the ‘left wing’ of the Artists’ Union and the Underground of the 1960s–70s, to the post-Perestoika period and nowadays.