On January 10, 1960, in Saransk, in the building of the former fire station on Sovetskaya Street, the Mordovian Republican Art Gallery named after F. V. Sychkow was opened.

In 1976, to mark the centenary of Stepan Erzi's birth, a new building for museum exhibitions was constructed. After renovations, the old gallery space began to be used as an exhibition hall for temporary exhibitions by artists such as V. D. Ilyukhin, V. A. Popkov, V. A. Bednov, N. P. Rozhkov, and others. It also hosts republican and all-Russian exhibition projects such as "Siyazh-Art," "Bolshaya Volga," "Volga Young," "Russia, My Motherland," and the All-Russian Sculpture Exhibition.

In May 2018, a major renovation was completed in the exhibition hall. The working plan of the S. D. Erzi Museum now includes projects organized in the updated exhibition hall.