Pavel Mikhaylovich Tretyakov (Russian: Па́вел Миха́йлович Третьяко́в; 27 December 1832 – 16 December 1898) was a Russian businessman, patron of art, collector, and philanthropist who gave his name to the Tretyakov Gallery and Tretyakov Drive in Moscow. His brother Sergei Tretyakov was also a famous patron of art and a philanthropist.
The State Tretyakov Gallery (Russian: Государственная Третьяковская Галерея, romanized: Gosudarstvennaya Tretyakovskaya Galereya; abbreviated ГТГ, GTG) is an art gallery in Moscow, Russia, which is considered the foremost depository of Russian fine art in the world.
The gallery's history starts in 1856 when the Muscovite merchant Pavel Mikhailovich Tretyakov acquired works by Russian artists of his day with the aim of creating a collection, which might later grow into a museum of national art. In 1892, Tretyakov presented his already famous collection of approximately 2,000 works (1,362 paintings, 526 drawings, and 9 sculptures) to the Russian nation. The museum attracted 894,374 visitors in 2020 (down 68 percent from 2019, due to the COVID-19 pandemic). It was 13th on the list of most-visited art museums in the world in 2020.