The arts collection department, originally named Documentation and Literature Gallery, was created to meet the task of organizing and designing the exposition of the future Museum for Literature. Initially, it served archiving purposes and contributed to the creation of collections and exhibitions.
The visual arts collection grew gradually from 1952 onwards. In the beginning, it consisted largely of the absorbed depository of the Strahov Monastery (predominantly graphics, furnishings, and objects of decorative art), but it was only during the fifties, when the PNP took charge of several major collections of art work, that the Museum acquired its own bedrock collection (the "Karásek gallery" - the thus-named collection of Jiří Karásek of Lvovice; the archive of original illustrations of publisher Vilímek, a part of the archives of the publishing houses "Družstevní práce", Otto, Šolc & Šimáček, and items from the depository of the National Commission for Culture).
In 1964, the art collections became a special department that focused on gathering, processing, publishing, and exhibiting original works from both fine arts and applied arts, memorial items from the estate of writers, furnishings, and everyday items, related to the development of literature and literary culture in general or to important literary figures in particular. New acquisitions strived to contribute to the creation of collections that would relate, in terms of their content, to the history of Czech literature as it developed over time, and bear testimony to the relationship between literature and the other arts in the broadest possible context. Building upon these art depositories of publishing houses, other collections were established and systematically replenished: a fund of book illustrations, a fund of works of fine art inspired by major works of literature, a collection of portraits and caricatures of literary figures, and (in recent years) a collection of concept art books.
In 1991, the PNP took charge of overseeing and managing the depository of collections of "Kabinet Ex Libris" in Chrudim, which thus became a field office of the art collections department. The Chrudim-based fund of Kabinet Ex Libris dates from 1971 and owes its existence to the voluntary work put in by amateur collectors who organized themselves in a "Club of Visual Art Lovers". Since 1974, the Club has regularly been organizing a triennial of Czech ex librises. The PNP has kept this tradition alive. From donations by artists, collectors, and inheritance trusts, the PNP created a major collection of ex librises which, combined with ex librises from the depositories of the PNP, represents the largest collection of Czech and foreign ex librises in the Czech Republic.
From 1991 - 2001, the PNP released over 30 000 collector's items which it had until then administered to their rightful owners, in particular the Royal Canonry of Premonstratensians at Strahov; the collections of Z. Macek and E. Lešehrad were also surrendered.
In 2000, the art collections department tackled the task of entering new acquisitions to, and re-cataloguing the fund of, the Karásek Gallery using the DEMUS software, along with a picture digitization of the collections. All new entries are accounted for, processed, and made accessible to scholars through the card catalogues in the study hall of the PNP art collections.
Currently, the art collections department oversees around 400 000 collector's items. In 2002, the depositories of the department were registered with the Central Register of Collections (CES) at the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic.
