The city museum "Art of Omsk", founded in February 1991, has become a unique phenomenon in the cultural life of Russia. Its founder and first director was V. F. Chirkov. The museum, whose focus is both artistic and culturological, was created with the goal of highlighting the richness and distinctiveness that mark the cultural environment of Omsk. A museum devoted to the art of a single city, a Siberian megalopolis, it conveys as its main theme the unique "spirit of place" inherent to the city, expressed through artistic images.

    The foundation of the museum's collections was formed by the works of young artists who were part of informal artistic associations of the late 80s - early 90s ("ECHO", "Cross", "SKIT", "Glazunov's Pupils"). In order to reflect the artistic and mythological identity of the city, the museum maintains separate collections, which include art education, children's spontaneous drawings, printed matter, decorative and applied art, amateur art, and object and visual art. In addition, a scientific base of primary sources is formed by collecting personal archives, by maintaining an approximately 30,000-unit collection of negatives of cityscapes and notable cultural figures since 1948, and by maintaining scientific archives. The museum is actively involved in organizing expositions in a variety of formats. A distinctive feature of its major projects is the interplay between the expository and scientific components.

    In 2007, the city museum "Art of Omsk" opened a new branch, the Museum of City Life. Currently, the branch is located at 7 Teatralnaya Street in Omsk