| National Museum of Fine Arts | |
|---|---|
| Muzeul Naţional de Artă | |
| Established | November 26, 1939 |
| Location | 115, 31 August 1989 Street, Chişinău |
| Type | Art museum |
| Director | Auguste Baillayre |
| Website | artmuseum.md |
The National Museum of Fine Arts (Romanian: Muzeul Naţional de Artă) is a museum in Chişinău, Moldova, founded in November 1939 by Alexandru Plămădeală and Auguste Baillayre.
In 1939 the sculptor Alexandru Plămădeală selects some 160 works of Bassarabian and Romanian artists in order to set up the first Picture Gallery of Chişinău whose director was Auguste Baillayre, painter and professor at Ecolle de Belle Arte of Chişinău. The first museum of Bassarabian fine art was opened on on November 26, 1939; its successor becomes National Art Museum of Moldova. In the first days of war the art pieces displayed in the Gallery, together with others donated by the Ministry of Culture and Cults of Romania were loaded into two lorries and delivered to Kharkiv; the destiny of these collections remains unknown until present.[1]
The building of the museum (architect Alexander Bernardazzi) is a monument in Moldova.[2]