The exhibition of the Sevastopol Art Museum begins with a portrait painted in 1960 by the Crimean artist Vera Alexandrovna Maksimushkina. The portrait shows an intelligent man at an easel with a palette in his hands. This is the famous museum worker and painter Mikhail Pavlovich Kroshitsky (1894–1972).

Between 1915 and 1918, Mikhail Kroshitsky audited classes at the Higher School of the Imperial Academy of Arts, studying under Vladimir Makovsky. After graduation, he was passionately engaged in painting, actively participated in exhibitions, taught successfully, and even had time to work in creative unions and public organizations. However, in 1927, museology entered his life to become his principal professional activity. After the opening of the Sevastopol Art Gallery, Kroshitsky worked there as a researcher for two years, and then was relocated to the Alupka Palace Museum. Later, he left for Voronezh. In 1934, he became the director of the Museum of Fine Arts created with his active participation. From December 1939 to May 1958, Mikhail Kroshitsky was the director of the Sevastopol Picture Gallery, to which he remained faithful till the end of his days.

When the Great Patriotic War broke the peacetime plans, thanks to the persistence of Mikhail Kroshitsky, the most valuable part of the collection was evacuated from the besieged city. For more than a year, on the harsh roads of war, Mikhail Kroshitsky was alone in his tireless efforts to move and preserve the priceless cargo, despite hunger, cold and tragic news from home. In that heroic journey through the Black and Caspian Seas, big cities and tiny railway stations of the Caucasus, Central Asia, Altai, and Siberia, after 43 transshipments, more than 1200 exhibits were finally saved. Mikhail Kroshitsky had many difficulties when returning to his hometown. In 1945, the collection was returned to Crimea, but to the Simferopol Art Museum, as the museum building in Sevastopol was totally destroyed, and almost all of the Simferopol collection had drowned in the Kerch Strait during the evacuation.

From 1945 to 1956, Mikhail Kroshitsky was the director of the united Sevastopol and Simferopol Picture Gallery. In 1956, he succeeded in having the art gallery returned to Sevastopol. Due to his efforts, since 1958, the museum has been located at 9 Nakhimova Avenue, in the former house of the merchant and the city mayor Sergey Khristoforovich Gavalov.