The Luxembourg Museum, founded in 1818 by order of King Louis XVIII in the palace of the same name, can be considered a predecessor of the Museum of Modern Art. It was one of the first European museums to exhibit works by contemporary artists. If, ten years after an artist's death, their paintings gained cultural value, they were transferred to the Louvre. Thus, the Luxembourg Museum accumulated many works of contemporary art that required more spacious halls. In 1937, the museum was granted the status of a State Museum of Modern Art, and preparations began for a new venue in the Palais de Tokyo.

The Palais de Tokyo, named after Tokyo Avenue, was built for the World Exhibition of Arts and Technology in Paris in 1937. During the exhibition, it served as a venue for cultural projects and workshops, hosting foreign delegations and representatives of the arts. The museum's opening was planned for 1939, but due to World War II, it only took place on June 9, 1947. During this period, the collections of the State Museum of Modern Art merged with the holdings of the Jeu de Paume gallery, which had previously received part of the exhibits from the Luxembourg Museum. This merger allowed the museum to gather a rich collection of foreign schools of painting.

The first director of the museum was Jean Cassou, a writer and art historian who significantly expanded the museum's collections. Thanks to his connections with famous individuals, the museum acquired masterpieces by such masters as Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. In 1977, the museum moved to the new building of the Centre Pompidou, which gave a new impetus for acquiring works of contemporary and modern art from around the world. Since 2010, the museum has organized temporary exhibitions at the Pompidou center's branches in Metz and Malaga.

The National Museum of Modern Art, with over 60,000 works in its collections, is one of the largest in Europe. It is dedicated to the art of the 20th and 21st centuries and includes works by Russian artists such as Wassily Kandinsky, Marc Chagall, Natalia Goncharova, Mikhail Larionov, and Kazimir Malevich.