The construction, in which the national museum is situated, was built according to the Russian emperor’s decision in 1888, and here was established Russian military-historical museum, so-called “Glory Temple”. The national art gallery itself was founded under the initiative of Dimitri Shevardnadze, who was a famous Georgian painter and public man. In the very same year, the first exhibition was held here. Dimitri collected wonderful drawings of Georgian painters, from all over Georgia. Some of these pictures were given for granted, as a present for this marvelous initiation. Some of them were bought by Dimitri, with his own money, and then he gave it all to the museum. In 2007 the National Gallery joined the Georgian National Museums.

There were huge wide scaled reconstructions for the building. But, still, the central facade of the edifice remained the same. Immutable was also the exhibition hall. The external facade of the construction is covered with plentiful decors, which are characteristic of the Baroque style. The central entrance has beautiful Corinthian pillars and pilasters, which are covered up with hemisphere exedra. The outer parts of the museum are also articulated with those pilasters as well. From the drawing rooms, two of them have glass-roofing and in such a way, sunlight is creating picturesque sightings, with glittering everywhere. During the reconstruction, the area was increased due to the garden territory, which was consolidated to the room space. So another exhibition room was created. In the renovated museum, there are functioning 8 halls, also, there was established special space for a restoration laboratory, a temporary reserve for organizing the exhibitions, educational space, and even a store. On November 20 in 2009, Tbilisi Art Gallery was given the title of Georgian Cultural Memorial.