The Gallery was founded on a donation from Ivan Mestrovic. It was opened in 1952 in the building Ivan Mestrovic had built according to his own plans from 1931 to 1939. The buildinq was intended as a combination of residential quarters, exhibition halls and ateliers for artists. Mestrovic lived here up to WWII.
The largest collection of Mestrovic's works from all of his phases is deposited in the Gallery. Bronze sculptures are on display in the park. Artworks out of marble, stone, wood, bronze, oil paintings and an assortment of drawings are on display in the halls of the gallery. A part of Mestrovic's work is exhibited in the Kastelet, once the summer house of the old Split family Kavanjin - Copogrosso from the XVIIth century. Mestrovic renovated the summer house and in the chapel he exhibited a cycle of the works he had been working of for 40 years.