Following in the populist footsteps of Affandi, Kartika also has a long history of painting rural and dispossessed people such as fishermen, farmers, workers and beggars.
Today the museum kept 1770 artworks by Indonesian and foreign artists, among the most notable are Indonesian artists Raden Saleh, Affandi, Basuki Abdullah, and also some foreign artists such as Wassily Kandinsky, Hans Hartung, Victor Vasarely, Sonia Delaunay, Pierre Soulages, and Zao Wou Ki.