Museum of Chiado

 

Founded in 1911 by Decree of the Republic, the National Museum of Contemporary Art (MNAC) has historically been one of the first institutions in this vocation museums internationally. Representative of the republican ideals of democratization of access to education and culture, the museum was the result of division of the former National Museum of Fine Arts in two separate institutions: the National Museum of Ancient Art, which inherited the collections before 1850, and the National Museum Contemporary Art, which incorporated all the artworks after this date, then chronological considered the hinge of modernity.

Throughout the first decades of the twentieth century, the collection of MNAC was enlarged through various acquisitions, including works by students Academy of Fine Arts and the Legacy Valmor application, which allowed the acquisition of works at the Salons of the Annual Art Guild and the National Society of Fine Arts.The collection thus reveals the artistic creation of the various generations that constituted modernity, a journey that begins with Romanticism, Naturalism is particularized in, takes his consciousness in modernism and with the abstract, the Surrealists and Neo-realists reaches fullness, though, for political and social reasons, these movements tend to stay on the sidelines of international contexts.
 

Installed since 1911, the property of the former Convent of San Francisco City, an area adjacent to the Academy and College Fine Arts, the museum was completely renovated in 1994 according to plans of French architect Jean-Michel Wilmotte, following the fire in 1988 affected the historical area of Chiado. This privileged location in one of the most iconic meeting places for intellectuals and modern artists, was institutionally assumed name with the Chiado Museum, adopted in 1994.
After the renovation of the museum, the contemporary has given special attention, gradually overcoming the chronological limits of the 1950s. Currently, the collection of MNAC - Museu do Chiado, an institution under the Ministry of Culture through the Institute of Museums and Conservation, has more than 4500 pieces, with seminal works of major artists and movements from 1850 to the present, covering the vast field of painting and sculpture, through drawing, photography and new media. In a process of continuous updating, the museum seeks to monitor and integrate contemporary manifestations, encouraging the creation and reflecting on their contexts of production. Parallel to the study and dissemination of its collections of modern and contemporary Portuguese art, the MNAC - Museu do Chiado promotes exhibitions of national and international, as well as a number of other educational and cultural activities.

National Museum of Contemporary Art - Museum Chiado

Technical Details

Date of Issue: 26 May 2011

Values: Stamps of €0,32; €0,32; €0,47; €0,47; €0,68; €0,68  + miniature sheet with two stamps of €1,50

Designer: Atelier Acácio Santos /Elisabete Fonseca

Printer: Joh. Enschedé

Process: 4-colour offset lithography

Size: stamps 30.6 mm x 40.0 mm; souvenir sheets 125mm x 95 mm

Perforation: Cross of Christ 13 x 13

Paper: FSC 110g/m2

Watermark:

Sheet: sheets of 50 stamps