Nitra Gallery was founded on January 1, 1965. It began its activities in the Grand Seminary building –the local Nitra Museum at that time. In the same year the gallery obtained rooms in the former County Hall, where it has been located until today. Nitra Gallery launched the exhibition activities in the County Hall on December 12, 1965 with the exhibition of the older and contemporary artists of Nitra origin.
Thanks to the exhibitions, collectors and cultural-educational activities overlapping the town and regional context, the gallery was granted in 1968 the local and since 1972 the regional sphere of authority. In 1980 Nitra Gallery opened the Youth´s Gallery – an exeptional one of its kind in Slovakia, which provided the space to the young artists from around Slovakia. Nitra Gallery was renamed František Studený Gallery in 1982 in connection with the hereditaments of the painter František Studený. From 1990 it was named State Gallery Nitra. The Gallery was integrated into the Nitra cultural centre after the establishment of the regional cultural centres and was titled Ponitrianska Gallery until 1999 when it was again renamed Nitra Gallery.
Nitra Gallery has been a non-profit organization of the Nitra Self-governing region (since 2002) with individual legal entity.
The basic mission of the gallery is to collect, professionally research, evaluate, manage, protect, use and present the artworks of all fine art disciplines of the 20th – 21th century.
At the moment, Nitra Gallery disposes with five exhibition spaces: The Representative Halls present important Slovak and international projects, curatorial research and also host individual exhibitions. The Salon is aimed at individual chamber presentations. In 2001 Nitra Gallery launched the activities of the Youth Gallery mapping the work by students and graduates of the fine art academies. The Bunker is a multifunctional space for young alternative art since 2008 and provides students, artists and young curators with the space for experiment in different artistic disciplines – visual, theatre or music. The Colourful Gallery was established in 2010 and offers a space for presentation of the activities of the gallery lecturer.
In 2010, Nitra Gallery launched the Virtual Gallery website by means of which it presents collections, rich art fund and the latest artworks, as well as the works by the older authors ranging from panting, sculpture, drawing, graphics and other media. It serves at the same time a kind of substitution for the missing permanent exhibitions.
Except of the exhibitions, Nitra Gallery offers interesting cultural and educational projects and events: The Gallery of Music – the cycle of chamber concerts, 4-3-2-1… talkshows with writers, afterpARTy – discussions on fine art with the exhibiting artists, regular events, such as: The Nitra Gallery Week (during the International Day of Museums and Galleries), The White Night (during the International Theatre Festival Divadelná Nitra), Postmutart – the cycle of the contemporary music overlapping the intermedia. There are also different educational programmes for children and students such as: Everybody can create, Playing with art and Young artist. The tradtional event regularly offered to children is The holiday painting during the summer holiday.
The Ministry of Culture of the Slovak republic awarded the Nitra Gallery with the title “The Gallery of the Year” for the years 2014 and 2017 for its outstanding work and the variety of activities for visitors of all age groups.
The former County Hall, a protected cultural site, is a four-wing building located in the square where the Upper and Lower Towns meet and it serves at the same time as the entrance gate to the Upper Town.
The County Hall was built as a late baroque palace probably on the original foundations in 1823. It was expanded in 1874–76 (project by the architect Edön Dümmerling) and in 1903-08 completely rebuilt in the Art Nouveau style (project by V. Czígler, supervised by the developer J. Tomaschek).
The County Hall was the seat of the Nitra region with short breaks until 1945. Janko Jesenský, an important Slovak writer, worked here as a head of regional administration in 1923-28. After the regional reorganization, the space was provided to the local state organs and organizations. In 1983 the property was transmitted to the administration of the Nitra Gallery that became its main user.
The mound situated in the neighbourhood of the eastern wing of the building served in the 17th century as a defensive wall during the period of Turkish wars. The gallery garden is situated in the area called Upper Palanok. In the past there were organized different cultural events, evenings at the fountain, concerts, exhibitions and the summer reading room for the public. In 1990-97 four archeological researches took place in the area of the former County Hall. They resulted into several extraordinary findings (the rests of the medieval architecture dated from the 12th-15th century, the rests of the early Ugrian defensive wall from the middle of the 11th century, the grave with two children skeletons from the early Bronze Age, but also ceramics from the 9th-11th century and others) which contributed on a large scale to the explanation of the archelogic situation of this part of the town.
At present, the building has been housing the Nitra Gallery and the chairman of the Nitra Self- governing region.
