In 1990, the collections of the old Museu d'Art de Catalunya, including Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque art, were merged with the 19th- and 20th-Century displays of the Museu d'Art Modern to form a new national museum, which incorporated the Department of Drawings and Prints, the Catalan Coinage and Medals Cabinet (Gabinet Numismàtic de Catalunya) and the General Library of Art History (Biblioteca d'Història de l'Art). The new structure also added the Department of Photography in 1966. The idea of creating such an all-encompassing museum dates back to the second half of the 19th Century, and was furthered with the 1934 opening of the Museu d'Art de Catalunya.

The National Art Museum of Catalonia houses vast ensembles of Romanesque art, presenting mainly Catalan works made between the 11th and 13th Centuries. The site also displays pieces of the pre-Romanesque period. Among the collection’s notables are the series of large mural paintings, panel paintings, woodcarvings and stone sculptures, as well as metal and enamel works of the period. The ensembles dedicated to Gothic Art are characterised by a profusion of figurative arts in several typologies and techniques, including mural and panel painting, metalwork, enamels, stone sculpture, wood and ivory carving.

The different sections of the museum display the re-interpretation of different European trends produced in Catalonia, evident in the characteristic sub-styles of Linear Gothic, Italianate Gothic, International Gothic (Flemish Gothic), and a counterpoint of non-Catalan works. There are also sections devoted to 14th- and early 15th-Century sculpture. The site also holds monographic sections devoted to painters and specific subjects, including funerary art, and the evolution of the depiction of the 'Virgin Mary' in European sculpture. The exhibits cover such trends as the Italian , great Venetian masters of the , Dutch art of the 16th and 17th Centuries, the Spanish Golden Age and Rococo, as well as vast Renaissance and Baroque holdings.

The museum’s collection also contains important ensembles of Catalan art from the 19th Century and the first decades of the 20th Century, when a line of artistic trends rapidly followed each other, including Neoclassicism, Realism, Noucentisme, the 1927 Generation and the avant-garde. The presence of the and movements, which include the region’s first decorative arts, is supplemented by a superb group of avant-garde sculptures. The collections of the Department of Drawings and Prints feature a wide selection of important Catalan tendencies and art movements from the late 17th Century to the avant-gardes. The collection consists of drawings, prints and posters by principal Catalan artists of each period, and also features a large number of international names.