The gallery's history starts in 1856 when theMoscow merchant Pavel Mikhailovich Tretyakov acquired works by Russian artists of his day with the aim of creating acollection, which might later grow into amuseum of national art. In 1892, Tretyakov presented his already famous collection of approximately 2,000 works (1,362 paintings, 526 drawings, and 9 sculptures) to the Russian nation. The collection contains more than 130,000 exhibits, ranging from Theotokos of Vladimirand Andrei Rublev's Trinity to the monumentalComposition VII by Wassily Kandinsky and theBlack Square by Kazimir Malevich. In 1977 the Gallery kept a significant part of the George Costakis collection. In May 2012, the Tretyakov Art Gallery played host to the prestigious FIDE World Chess Championship between Viswanathan Anandand Boris Gelfand as the organizers felt the event would promote both chess and art at the same time.
