Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (Buenos Aires)

Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes
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File:Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (Buenos Aires) 10209 crop.jpg Location within Buenos Aires
Established	25 December 1896
Location	Avenida del Libertador 1473 Buenos Aires, Argentina
Visitors	1 million/year
Director	Marcela Cardillo
Website	www.mnba.gob.ar

The Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (MNBA) ("National Museum of Fine Arts" in English) is an Argentine art museum in Buenos Aires, located in the Recoleta section of the city. The MNBA inaugurated a branch in Neuquén in 2004.

History

Argentine painter and art critic Eduardo Schiaffino was the first director of the MNBA, which opened on 25 December 1895 in a building on Florida Street which today houses the Galerías Pacífico shopping mall. In 1909 the museum moved to a building in Plaza San Martín, originally erected in Paris as the Argentine Pavilion for the 1889 Paris exhibition, and later dismantled and brought to Buenos Aires. In its new home the museum became part of the International Centenary Exhibition held in Buenos Aires in 1910. Following the demolition of the Pavilion in 1932 as part of the remodelling of Plaza San Martín, the museum was transferred to its present location in 1933, a building originally constructed in 1870 as a drainage pumping station and adapted to its current use by architect Alejandro Bustillo.

The museum was modernized both physically and in its collections during the 1955–64 tenure of director Jorge Romero Brest. A temporary exhibits pavilion was opened in 1961, and the museum acquired a large volume of modern art though its collaboration with the Torcuato di Tella Institute, a leading promoter of local, avant-garde artists, and elsewhere; a Contemporary Argentine Art pavilion was later opened in 1980. This 1,536 square metres (16,533 sq ft) hall is the largest of 34 currently in use at the museum, which totals 4,610 square metres (49,622 sq ft) of exhibit space. Its permanent collection totals 688 major works and over 12,000 sketches, fragments, potteries and other minor works. The institution also maintains a specialized library, totalling 150,000 volumes, as well as a public auditorium. The MNBA commissioned architect Mario Roberto Álvarez to design a branch in the patagonian region city of Neuquén. Inaugurated in 2004, this museum holds 4 exhibit halls totaling 2,500 square metres (26,910 sq ft) and a permanent collection of 215 works, as well as temporary exhibits and a public auditorium.

The ground floor of the museum holds 24 exhibit halls housing a fine international collection of paintings from the Middle Ages up to the 20th century, together with the museum's art history library. The first floor's 8 exhibit halls contain a collection of paintings by some of the most important 20th-century Argentine painters, including Antonio Berni, Ernesto de la Cárcova, Benito Quinquela Martín, Eduardo Sívori, Alfredo Guttero, Raquel Forner, Xul Solar, Marcelo Pombo and Lino Enea Spilimbergo. The second floor's two halls, completed in 1984, hold an exhibition of photographs and two sculpture terraces, as well as most of the institution's administrative and technical departments.

Gallery

• Jacob Cornelisz. van Oostsanen - El nacimiento de la Virgen María.jpg

  Flemish Renaissance, The birth of Virgin Mary, Oostanen, late 15th or early 16th century

• Peter Paul Rubens - Alegoría de la Fortuna y la Virtud - Google Art Project.jpg

  Flemish Baroque, Allegory of Fortune and Virtue, Rubens, 17th century

• Frans Pourbus, o Jovem - Princesa Margarita Gonzaga, séc. XVI.jpg

  Flemish Baroque, Portrait of Margarita Gonzaga, Pourbus (the Younger), 1603

• José de Ribera - Un astrónomo - Google Art Project.jpg

  Spanish Baroque, An astronomer, Ribera, 1617-1652

• Francisco de Zurbarán - Monje meditando.jpg

  Spanish Baroque, Saint Francis in meditation, Zurbarán, 1632

• Harmensz van Rijn REMBRANDT y Taller - Retrato de mujer joven - Google Art Project.jpg

  Dutch Baroque, Portrait of young woman, Rembrandt, 1634

• Aelbert Cuyp - Paisaje con las ruinas de la Abadía de Rijnsburg.jpg

  Dutch Baroque, Landscape with the ruins of the Abbey of Rijnsburg, Cuyp, 1645

• Miguel Gonzales - La Conquista de México. Tabla VIII - Google Art Project.jpg

  Mexican Baroque, The Conquest of Mexico. Table VIII, Gonzales, 1696/1715

• Henry Raeburn - Master Cathcat.jpg

  Scottish academic art, Master Cathcart and dog, Raeburn, 1810

• Manuelarosas.jpg

  Argentine naturalism, Portrait of Manuelita Rosas, Pueyrredón, 1851

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  Argentine naturalism, A stop in the countryside, Pueyrredón, 1861

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  French naturalism, The surprised nymph, Manet, 1861

• Claude Monet - Le Pont de Argenteuil, 1875.jpg

  French Impressionism, The bridge of Argenteuil, Monet, 1875

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  French naturalism, Portrait of Ernest Hoschedé and his daughter Martha, Manet, 1876

• Claude Monet - Le berge de La Seine, 1880.jpg

  French Impressionism, The banks of the Seine, Monet, 1880

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  French Impressionism, Le Moulin de la Galette, Van Gogh, 1886-1887

• Eduardo Sivori - El despertar de la criada - Google Art Project.jpg

  Argentine naturalism, The maid's awakening, Sívori, 1887

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  French academic art, The First Mourning, Bouguereau, 1888

• Cándido Lopez - Vista interior de Curuzú mirado de aguas arriba - Google Art Project.jpg

  Argentine naturalism, Interior view of Curuzú looked upstream, López, 1891

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  Argentine naturalism, The return of the malón, Della Valle, 1892

• Cándido Lopez - Después de la Batalla de Curupaytí - Google Art Project.jpg

  Argentine naturalism, After the Battle of Curupaytí, López, 1893

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  Argentine naturalism, Without bread and without work, Cárcova, 1894

• Edgar Degas - Deux danseuses jaunes et roses - Google Art Project.jpg

  French Impressionism, Dancers and two yellow roses, Degas, 1898

• Martín Malharro - Nocturno - Google Art Project.jpg

  Argentine symbolism, Nocturnal, Malharro, 1910

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  Argentine Impressionism, The haystacks (the pampa of today), Malharro, 1911

• Franz von Stuck - Batsheba, 1912.jpg

  German symbolism, Batsheba, Stuck, 1912

• Valentín THIBON DE Libian - La presentación - Google Art Project.jpg

  Argentine Post-Impressionism, The presentation, Thibon de Libian, 1918

• Alfredo Guttero - Anunciación - Google Art Project.jpg

  Argentine return to order, Annunciation, Guttero, 1928

External links

• Official website
• Asociación Amigos Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (Spanish)