Fyodor Kovalenko, a renowned Russian collector and founder of the art gallery in Yekaterinodar, was born on May 16, 1866, in Opishnya, Poltava province, into a large peasant family. After finishing a two-class school in 1881, his family moved to Yekaterinodar. His father arranged for 15-year-old Fyodor to work as a messenger in the grocery store of merchant Pyatkov, where he eventually became a cashier. With the money he earned, Fyodor began to collect books, paintings, engravings, coins, and archaeological finds, developing a passion for collecting. Possessing a talent for painting and artistic taste, he cultivated his interests. Fyodor's older brothers, lacking artistic inclinations but having a commercial flair, became wealthy through trade. One of them, Alexander Akimovich, took Fyodor in as a clerk.

By 1890, Fyodor Kovalenko's collection had grown so large that he held his first exhibition at home. This year is considered by some researchers to be the founding year of the art museum. By 1903, the collection no longer fit in his apartment, and Fyodor approached the Yekaterinodar Duma with a proposal to donate his collection to the city on the condition that a suitable space be allocated. He also requested permission to continue adding to the collection, to name the museum after himself, and to receive a small income for scholarships for talented student artists.

The city Duma unanimously accepted the collector's gift, which included 118 works of art, and agreed to his conditions. On April 11, 1904, the Yekaterinodar Art Gallery opened in the city administration building on Krasnaya Street, becoming the first public collection of paintings in the North Caucasus. The authorities allocated 400 rubles for furniture for the gallery. In 1905, Fyodor opened a library at the gallery and began publishing catalogs. In 1906, the gallery moved to a more spacious location on the second floor of the house of engineer Batyrbek Shardanov, which became the main building of the gallery.

Batyrbek Shardanov, a Circassian nobleman and graduate of the St. Petersburg Institute of Transport, worked on railway construction and was a member of charitable societies. He designed and built one of the most beautiful buildings in Yekaterinodar in 1905, where the gallery was located. In 1909, the Yekaterinodar Art Circle was established at the gallery to promote art in the North Caucasus and on the Black Sea coast. Fyodor Kovalenko, who served as the director and curator of the gallery, was awarded the title of "Honorary Lifetime Trustee of the Gallery."

In 1911, a school of painting and drawing opened in Yekaterinodar, later transformed into an art college. The city authorities, impressed by Fyodor's efforts, appointed him a salary. He established connections with the Imperial Academy of Arts, and artists such as Ilya Repin and Vasily Polenov donated their works to the gallery. Fyodor corresponded with Italian artist Giuseppe Parrini and ordered copies of works by Raphael and Sebastiano del Piombo. From St. Petersburg, he received catalogs from which he selected paintings by Russian and Western European artists.

Fyodor Kovalenko was a member of the Kuban Regional Statistical Committee, the Yekaterinodar Society of Fine Arts, and an honorary member of the Society of Arts in Kyiv. He participated in exhibitions and gatherings of the intelligentsia in St. Petersburg and Kyiv, serving as a jury member at many events in Yekaterinodar. After the revolution, he secured resolutions protecting the gallery from searches and confiscations. In 1918, he became the chairman of the commission for organizing the Museum of the Revolution and raised the issue of creating a literary museum. However, during the Civil War, while preparing for another exhibition, Fyodor Kovalenko passed away from typhus on February 9, 1919.