The base and the cultural center of the gallery is the collection of pictures, which was presented by its honored curator – count О. G. Kushelev – Bezborodko. September, 4 1845 on the occasion of an anniversary of the educational establishment. Reporting about this act of Ministry of Public Education, he (О. G. Kushelev – Bezborodko pointed out: “I present with this Art Gallery the lyceum, which I bought in different cities of Italy and which consists of 10 pictures of the Italian school before the 16th century, Florentine – 9 pictures, Roman – 12, Lombardic - 13, Venetian – 12, Neapolitan - 5, Genovese – 16, Spanish – 5, French – 20, German – 20, Flemish – 46, Novorussky – 7. In total 175 pictures in gilded-frames on the condition, that these pictures will be placed in the vacant halls of the Lyceum building and will serve for the development of good taste, and will always remain the property of this educational establishment”. Together with the collection the curator presented a catalogue of the artistic gallery in part leather, in which information about drawing canvas attributions is contained: author, name, creation date, in some cases the sum of money, for which one or other picture was bought (the total sum of picture price was 12614 RUB. at the times ). In passages and audiences there were drawing canvas before the beginning of 20th century.

The researches of canvas existence at the beginning of the 20th century is not finished yet, there are not enough facts, concerning the existence of collection in Kyiv during World War II. It’s known for sure, that pictures returned to Nizhyn Gogol State University in 1946, and in 1956-1957 takes place the work on research and partial restoration of the canvas, that returned. Delivery acceptance act from November, 4, 1957 remains deposited in the archives of the gallery. Actually, since 1957 the pictures are stored and presented in a separate room and work in the capacity of a picture gallery, having its own working hours and a museum worker. In the 80ies the picture gallery refills with works of different artists, among which there is an excellent collection of canvases by the Ukrainian painter S.F. Shishko and the works of a master of Baltic landscape U. Fedders. Nowadays the picture gallery is the brightest part of the Museum Complex of the university, which is the inherent component of the academic, sociocultural and educational processes of the educational establishment.