MNAC

entry: General Conditions

Modern Art in Portugal

the collection from the National Museum of Contemporary Art - Museu do Chiado

2007-09-06
2008-01-20
Curatorship: María Jesús Ávila

Caja Duero, Salamanca:  6 September – 21 October 2007

Fundación Carlos de Amberes, Madrid: 30 October – 2 December 2007

Museo de Bellas Artes de Badajoz: 12 December 2007 – 20 January 2008

The exhibition aims to present a synthesis of modern art in Portugal, developed during the first three decades of the XX century. Its emergence in the first decade of that century, was complex and only possible thanks to the enthusiasm of its players since then and over the following decades between memorable moments of euphoria and enthusiasm for the future, and stages of dangerous conservatism, as expected in an environment still marked by social, educational and cultural structures from the nineteenth century. 

The exhibition illustrates with some forty works from the collection of National Museum of Contemporary Art - Museu do Chiado, all determinants with respect to quality, when holding the career of the artist and his historical role - the path of the main protagonists of this artistic period: Abel Manta, Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso, António Pedro, António Soares, Bernardo Marques, Carlos Botelho, Christiano Cruz, Dordio Gomes, Eduardo Viana, Guilherme Santa Rita; José de Almada Negreiros, Maria Helena Vieira da Silva and Mário Eloy.

Works

44 works, painting, sculpture and drawing

Curator

María Jesús Ávila


 

On Exhibition

Loops.Expanded 2026

2026-07-14
2026-10-03
Curatorship: Irit Batsry
MNAC – National Museum of Contemporary Art – Chiado and DuplaCena present, for the 11th consecutive year, an exhibition dedicated to the loop as a seminal form of the moving image.
Temporary Exhibition

On Gestures and Forms

A dialogue between collections

2026-06-18
2026-09-20
Curatorship: MNAA e MNAC
Works from the collections of Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Museu Nacional de Arte Contemporânea, and Fundação Millennium bcp, engage in a dialogue across different periods, materials, and approaches to artistic creation.
Temporary Exhibition

Alice Geirinhas

Sycorax

2026-05-29
2026-09-20
Curatorship: Lúcia Saldanha e Rui Afonso Santos
Sycorax is an installation of drawings that summons the absent and silenced figure of Sycorax, the witch and mother of Caliban, characters from "The Tempest" by William Shakespeare.
Temporary Exhibition

Ultratremor

Group show

2026-05-29
2026-09-27
Curatorship: Germano Dushá
Between the visible and the invisible, the exhibition brings together artists who explore states of transformation, apparition, and resonance, bringing matter, imagination, and spiritual experience into dialogue.
Temporary Exhibition

Maria José Oliveira

I who once was I

2026-05-15
2026-10-04
Curatorship: Paula Parente Pinto
Maria José Oliveira transforms everyday materials and discarded objects into territories of memory, ritual, and metamorphosis, where time itself becomes a living material of artistic creation.
Temporary Exhibition

Impressões Digitais. MNAC Collection

2024-12-12
2026-12-30
Curatorship: Ana Guimarães, Emília Ferreira, Maria de Aires Silveira e Tiago Beirão Veiga
Consisting of founding works of contemporary Portuguese art historiography, from 1850 to the present day, the MNAC's collection holds several national treasures.
Permanent Exhibition