MNAC. Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya. National Art Museum of Catalonia.
Buy tickets. This is a wonderful museum in a suberb location. The MNAC showcases one thousand years of Catalan art spanning the 10th to 20th centuries.
The MNAC museum is in the 'Palau Nacional' on Montjuic hill, which was built as the impressive Spanish Pavillion for the 1929 Barcelona International Exhibition. MNAC has an extensive collection of Romanesque and Gothic medieval art. The museum's holdings of Renaissance and baroque art include part of the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, formerly housed in Pedralbes Monastery. Highlights of the modern art collection, which used to be in the Museu d'Art Modern, include works from such noteworthy movements as Catalonia's home-grown art nouveau - modernisme - and the sculptural avant-garde, and includes photography from its origins to the present day.
Part of Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza's collection of 19th- and 20th century art has also been added to the museum's holdings. The coin collection provides an insight into the history of coins from Ancient Greece onwards.
Picasso Room at MNACFor Picasso fans there is a
Sala de Picasso - Picasso room at the MNAC - with nine Picasso works. Eight works include two Cubist works; four paintings with an erotic content produced under the influence of Surrealism, and comes to an end with the portraits of Nusch Éluard, poet Paul Éluard's second wife, Marie-Thérèse Walter, and Dora Maar, the two latter being Picasso's lovers.
These three portraits date from the end of the 1930s, and clearly bear witness to the so-called 'Picasso style'. MNAC director Pepe Serra. The ninth is the 1927 '
Woman in Hat and Fur Collar' (Marie-Thérèse Walter), 1937 is one of the many portraits that Pablo Picasso did of Marie-Thérèse Walter, his partner between 1927 and 1935.
TICKETS MNACMNAC opening times:Tickets €12
Rooftop Viewpoint: €2
Related linksDiscount w Barcelona CardARTTICKET BCN pass for 6 Barcelona art centres