The article considers the history of museums in the city of Pavlodar; provides a brief summary of museum funds and expositions; reveals the features of cultural-educational and scientific-exploratory functioning of museums. Emphasis is made of the value of the memorial museums, including the pictorialist Bagayev, history of completing of funds of museum of local lore, educational and scientific activity of museum collectives. Art expositions of the museums represent creativity of the Kazakh artists who have got an education in special art institutions of Russia. Funds of the art museums representing a subject and thematic picture, landscape and other genres of painting are analyzed. The author focuses on a continuity problem in the appeal of artists to plots of national history, on a problem of interaction between national and European traditions in the fine arts of Pavlodar. The conclusion is made that the modern fine arts of Kazakhstan, developing on the basis of rich national art heritage do not lose commitment to traditions of high realism of the Russian art school. Activity of the museums of Pavlodar meets the requirements of educational activity in the conditions of economic and cultural globalization