State Museum of Arts named after I.V. Savitsky is located in the capital of Karakalpakstan, Nukus city. A voluminous collection of works and paintings of the Russian avant-garde is stored here.
The museum was founded in 1966 by Igor Savitsky, an outstanding scientist, artist and ethnographer. He was able to collect the most complete collection of Russian and Turkestan avant-garde, samples of applied art of Karakalpakstan and unique archaeological exhibits of Ancient Khorezm in the museum.
After Savitsky’s death in 1984, his name was given to the museum. 1991 the first international category was awarded to the museum, which made it the greatest one along with the Tretyakov Gallery and the St. Petersburg Hermitage.
Today the museum contains more than 90,000 different exhibits. Museum collections are stored and exhibited in 3 buildings with a total area of almost 7 thousand square meters. There are 6 departments in the museum, namely: fine art department, archeology department, mass education department, applied art department, restoration department, and registration and storage sector.
The Savitsky Museum is an object of visiting a large number of people both from Uzbekistan and from many foreign countries. Every year about 70,000 people visit the museum, of which 3,000 are foreigners, and the main purpose of their visit is this museum. The people even call it the “Treasure of Nukus” or the “Pearl of the Aral Sea Region”.
After visiting the museum, you will understand and get a fairly complete picture of the life and culture of peoples, starting from the III century BC and up to the present time.