Five Art Museums to Visit in Portugal
Portugal has recently witnessed the establishment, refurbishment, and expansion of its most significant art museums. These institutions tell the stories of their foundation and reflect the country’s rich heritage and traditions, as well as their vision for its future role in the world. For this article, in keeping with London Art Walk’s focus, I have mostly chosen museums with modern and contemporary collections – places I always make a point of visiting whenever I travel to Portugal.
Serralves Museum (Porto)
The Serralves Foundation in Porto is a must-visit destination where you can spend a day immersed in art, strolling through the gardens, and unwinding with a drink at the Tea House overlooking the tennis court.
Serralves Villa is a prime example of Portuguese Art Deco from the 1930s, adorned with water features and formal gardens. The park is rich with attractions to discover: a treetop walk, the House of Cinema, and sculptures by Anish Kapoor, Claes Oldenburg, Dan Graham, Fernanda Gomes, and Richard Serra.
The museum itself is a masterpiece of modern elegance, designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Álvaro Siza, whose clean lines integrate seamlessly with its natural surroundings. Serralves focuses on modern and contemporary art, from the 1960s onwards, and offers exhibitions, educational programmes, concerts, and film screenings. Some of the artists featured at Serralves include Mira Schendel, Cindy Sherman, Cildo Meireles, Yto Barrada, Julie Mehretu, Wolfgang Tillmans, among others.
MAAT – Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology (Lisbon)
Situated along the banks of the River Tagus in Belém, MAAT combines a distinctive modern building with the historic Tejo Power Station, in use from 1909 to 1972, an example of 20th-century industrial architecture. The Power Station maintains its original machinery in perfect conservation and is now a permanent installation open to visitors.
MAAT’s new building, designed by British architect Amanda Levete, is a futuristic structure that perfectly echoes the riverbank through its undulating form. The expansive interior is ideal for interdisciplinary projects and large-scale immersive exhibitions. The museum includes a large collection of Portuguese artists and an impressive international programme. Recent exhibiting artists include Jonathas de Andrade, Pollyana Freire, Angela Bulloch, Tadashi Kawamata, and Grada Kilomba. At the time of writing, exhibitions by Ernesto Neto and Daniel Blaufuks are on display.
Museum of Contemporary Art (Lisbon)
Within 400m of MAAT, and within the renowned Centro Cultural de Belém, the Museum of Contemporary Art is Portugal’s premier institution for modern and contemporary art, which reopened in 2023. The museum has significant works from various collections, including the State Contemporary Art Collection (CACE), the Teixeira de Freitas Collection, the Ellipse Collection, and the Berardo Collection.
Displayed in chronological order, the works offer a journey through major artistic movements and styles, from surrealism to pop art, hyper-realism, minimalist art, and conceptual art. The collection features works by artists such as Andy Warhol, Maria Helena Vieira da Silva, Francis Bacon, Marcel Duchamp, Paula Rego, Salvador Dalí, Piet Mondrian, Max Ernst, Louise Bourgeois, Donald Judd, Joan Miró, Bruce Nauman, Pablo Picasso, among others.
Calouste Gulbenkian Museum (Lisbon)
The Calouste Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon is a remarkable institution that reflects the sensibilities of its founder, Calouste Gulbenkian, a renowned collector with connections to the UK, the Gulf States, and France. The building is a modernist structure in the brutalist style, surrounded by gardens that harmoniously fuse with its architecture.
The museum’s extensive permanent collection spans 5,000 years, featuring art from Ancient Egypt to the early 20th century. Some of the collection highlights include Islamic art, East Asian work, French decorative arts, the jewelry of René Lalique, and works from some of history’s most celebrated painters, such as Rembrandt, Monet, Rubens, Manet, Degas, and Turner.
The museum also hosts temporary exhibitions on a wide range of themes, and artists from different times, geographies and disciplines, providing a diverse cultural experience. In September 2024, the reimagined Gulbenkian Modern Art Centre, designed by Japanese architect Kengo Kuma, will reopen. The building has been extended and acquired a ceramic tile canopy inspired by traditional Japanese architecture that enhances its connection to its surroundings.
Quetzal Art Centre (Beja)
Moving south from the capital, we arrive in Alentejo, a region known for its arid golden soil, olive trees, cork, and wine. A slightly different choice from the previous museums, Quetzal Art Centre not only has an art collection, but it is also a restaurant and a winery. Cees and Inge de Bruin, the Dutch founders of the collection, invite guest curators to present works by established and emerging artists, which can be enjoyed among grapevines and wheat-fields, providing a treat for all of the senses in this historic wine-growing region.
Ana Teles for London Art Walk
August 2024