The art museum in Ufa was opened in 1920 and is located in a mansion that belonged to the Ufa merchant M.A. Laptev. The building was designed by the famous Samara architect A. Shcherbachev. The founder and inspirer of the museum's creation was the renowned Russian artist Mikhail Vasilyevich Nesterov, who long harbored the idea of establishing it. He even planned to allocate land from his estate, which was located near the Noble Assembly, for its construction, but the October Revolution made its own adjustments. As a result, the museum was housed in Laptev's mansion, which previously served as the headquarters of the Red Army.

Even before the museum's opening, Mikhail Nesterov donated his collection, which included over 100 paintings, among which were works by other famous artists. In the mid-century, the museum was named after Nesterov for his significant contribution to the cultural development of Ufa.

Today, the museum is called the Bashkir State Art Museum named after M.V. Nesterov. Its collections have been supplemented with paintings from other cultural institutions, such as the Russian Museum in Leningrad and the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, as well as from private collections.

The museum features not only paintings but also examples of decorative and applied arts. Here you can see works by Russian artists of the 19th and early 20th centuries, as well as creations by contemporary Bashkir masters. The collection includes both lesser-known works and pieces familiar to many art lovers.

The museum houses over 12,000 exhibits. A significant part of the collection consists of ancient icons, the first handwritten books, and elements of decorative and applied arts. Western European art of the 15th and 19th centuries is represented by paintings from Italian and German artists, European engravings, and sculptures. The core of the collection consists of canvases by Russian painters of the 18th and 20th centuries, as well as works by Nesterov himself and other famous artists such as Aivazovsky, Surikov, Shishkin, and Levitan.

In 2014, due to the expansion of the collection, the museum moved to a new five-story building. The old mansion retained the exhibition of classical art, while the new building hosts exhibitions. The museum has branches in other cities of Bashkortostan. The museum actively participates in international exhibitions and hosts collections from masters from China, Germany, and Italy.

The museum holds a variety of events: openings of new exhibitions, creative workshops, including for children, educational programs on drawing, as well as art and music programs for the youngest visitors. A social project called 'Accessible Environment' is being implemented. Almost every day, interesting events take place here. The museum is open for visits every day except Monday.