From the Mongolian steppes to the international art world
Uuganbayar Amgalanbayar, Countryside, oil on canvas
Mongolian Art Gallery preserves, presents and promotes modern and contemporary Mongolian painting for audiences beyond its borders. Working directly with artists in Ulaanbaatar and across the country, the gallery has built one of the most comprehensive private collections of modern Mongolian art — and carried it to exhibitions, galleries and private collections around the world.
A cultural bridge between Mongolia and the world
The gallery exists to give Mongolian artists a lasting place in the international conversation — not through a single exhibition or sale, but through relationships maintained over years. Its work rests on four commitments.
The gallery story
The beginning of the collection
The first works were gathered at a moment when many gifted Mongolian painters had little access to the world beyond the country. Early collaborations were built on trust and a shared conviction that this artistic heritage deserved a wider audience.
Dolgor Ser-Od, Holidays For Friends, 2005 — one of the first works to enter the collection
First international exhibitions
The paintings began to travel. Curated exhibitions abroad introduced Mongolia's landscapes, culture and identity to viewers encountering this work for the first time.
Batjargal Tseintsogzol, Eagle Hunter, 2008 — shown from London to the New York art fairs
A living archive of Mongolian art
The collection now holds more than 1,670 original paintings by 108 artists — among the most comprehensive private selections of modern Mongolian art. Each work records a passage: an artist finding a voice, a culture finding new horizons.
Bazo Dugarsuren, Rounded Composition 1, 2009
Chosen one painting at a time
The collection was not assembled at auction. It was built over two decades of visits to studios in Ulaanbaatar and the provinces, in conversation with the artists themselves — and every work was selected by a single, deliberately simple measure: whether it deserved a wall in a home.
That method explains the collection's shape. It runs deep on a small number of artists rather than wide across many, because the relationships lasted years; it favours the work an artist made for themselves over the work made to sell; and it treats the purchase as the beginning of a commitment to that artist, not the end of a transaction.
Mongolian art is very special because of its direct and unpretentious expression. It is exactly this quality that makes it so captivating for collectors.
The international journey
Between 2006 and 2016 the gallery showed Mongolian painting across three continents — a sustained programme of international exhibitions and art fairs that placed these artists in galleries and private collections worldwide.