First and foremost the Ministry of Culture’s mission is to facilitate the development of national art and create the conditions necessary for participation in the international art arena, and secondly, to provide Estonian people with access to the fine arts.

There are four state-owned art museums in the Ministry’s governance – the Art Museum of Estonia, Tartu Art Museum, the Estonian Museum of Applied Art and Design and the Museum of Estonian Architecture. In addition, such private art museums, galleries and exhibition halls as The Museum of New Art in Pärnu, the Art Gallery of Narva Museum, Tallinn Art Hall and Tallinn Art Hall Gallery also play an important role, not to mention the approximately one hundred smaller galleries and exhibition halls all over Estonia that are engaged in regular exhibition activity. About 600 exhibitions are organised in Estonia annually. When promoting Estonian art at home and abroad it is difficult to underestimate the efforts made by foundations like the Centre of Contemporary Art Estonia and Tallinn Print Triennial as well as the NGOs Tallinn Applied Art Triennial, Art Summer and so on.

The majority of Estonian artists belong to a creative union. The largest umbrella organisation for creative unions is the Association of Estonian Artists, which comprises 22 sub-unions and 1000 members. Next are the Association of Estonian Architects (363 members), the Union of Estonian Interior Designers (300 members) and the Union of Estonian Designers (158 members). In addition to these, there are also smaller local artists´ unions such as Viljandi Artist Union, Narva Artists Union and others.

Four art and architecture periodicals are published in Estonia – "Kunst.ee", "Estonian Art", "Ehituskunst" and "Maja".

In Estonia, the principal financer of art mechanisms is the state. The support allocated by the state amounts to two thirds of the total financing scheme. State support is allocated through the Ministry of Culture and the following sub-endowments of the Cultural Endowment of Estonia: the visual and applied arts endowment and the endowment of architecture. The remaining financing comes from local governments, foundations (the Foundation of Estonian National Culture, the Estonian Open Foundation), sponsors and private funds.

Allocations form Ministry’s budget for fine arts and architecture  1996-2002 (thousand euros)

	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004
PROJECT SUPPORT
Estonian art abroad; international events in Estonia; international co-operation	67.7	134.6	51.3	55.1	59.0
Presentations of professional art in Estonia	15.6	19.2		16.7	19.2
Activity support and target programmes
The Centre of ContemporaryArt Estonia	57.7	57.7	64.1	89.7	96.2
Tallinn Art Hall Foundation			19.2	25.6	25.6
Venice Art Biennial			44.9	48.0	48.1
Programme "Media Art"			25.6	19.2	19.2
IN TOTAL	141.0	211.5	205.1	254.5	250.0