The process of forming the Collections of the Gallery began in 1970-immediately after the
establishment of the Gallery of Contemporary Fine Arts. For the fifty years of the Gallery’s existence,
an imposing Fund of Works of Art was formed, which currently has 1689 inventory units logically
divided by technological characteristics into five collections:
1. The Collection of Contemporary Painting (584),
2. Nis Artists Collection (372)
3. New Media Collection (47)
4. Collection of drawings, graphics and papers (607)
5. Sculpture Collection (60)
The content of the Collections are analogous to the exhibition policy of the institution.
Namely, since the founding, the works of Serbian and international artists have been purchased or
donated, which at the time of their creation were indicators of quality, interesting, artistic practices.
Our distinguished artists are present in the collection as protagonists of certain stylistic choices, so
that thanks to it we can follow some of the complex movements in the painting style of South Slavic
region from 1970 to the present.
Next to artists from Serbia, there were artists from the former Yugoslav Republics, and starting from
the 1990s, more and more artists from Serbia and various countries were present: Greece, Bulgaria,
Denmark, Italy, Canada, USA, Japan …
Through the Gallery of Contemporary Fine Arts exhibition program, for almost half a century, the
Gallery has organized (by decision of the Art Council) solo and collective exhibitions, traditional
annual exhibitions, on-call exhibitions, and curatorial authored exhibitions where the purchase of
works of art was made for the Gallery Fund.
A special role in the formation of the Fund was played by the artists from Nis, who after completing
their education, took part in the artistic life of the city. The existence of the Secondary Art School,
and then the formation of the Faculty of Arts, created new generations of artists who gathered
around the Gallery as their home institution.
The Fund was continuously enriched with purchases of works of art, gifts, purchase prizes,
Association of Fine Arts of Serbia and The Association of Applied Arts Artists and Designers of
Serbia,the Art colony Sicevo, purchases and gifts of former institutions such as: Self-managing
Community of Interest, the Serbian Cultural and Educational Community, Republican Community
of Culture, artist’s gifts, Art colony in Lucerne, but mostly thanks to the Sicevo Art Colony which the
Gallery has been organizing since its foundation.
Besides the exhibitions of traditional art techniques, exhibitions of installations, installations and video
works were being organized more and more in order to follow the current artistic. In this way, the
general public was informed about the latest fine art productions entering the Fund through the
purchase. The creation of the Gallery Fund required significant museological activity based on the
selection, collection, adequate preservation, professional processing of works of art and keeping of
museological documentation according to the Law on Museology production.
All the works included in the Collections were museologically processed and kept professionally
documented: In addition to the entry inventory book, inventory card in the field of fine arts 3/1,
authors’ card, photo and video documentation, Purchase contracts and Gift Agreements ,the
work of artists from Nis was especially monitored through the collection of materials for keeping the
author’s files. The Gallery joined the digitization of cultural heritage under the Ministry of Culture and
Information program from 2019.