Guided tour of MACAM

On 16 April, the Club went on a guided tour of the new museum in Lisbon – the Armando Martins Museum of Contemporary Art, housed in the historic Palace of the Counts of Ribeira Grande.

The new museum is the result of Armando Martins’ private collection, with around 600 works, dedicated to modern Portuguese and international art, gathered over the last 50 years. ‘A Collection in Two Times’ includes works by renowned artists such as Paula Rego, Júlio Pomar, Marina Abramović, Almada Negreiros, Santa-Rita, Amadeu de Sousa Cardoso, Cargaleiro and José Malhoa, whose work is the oldest in the collection, entitled ‘The reapers’ siesta’. In the first gallery, visitors will find a corridor dedicated to surrealists, such as Cruzeiro Seixas or Querubim Lapa, as well as works by Eduardo Batarda, Marcelino Vespeira and a large work by Maria Helena Vieira da Silva in the background.

At the beginning of the 20th century, modernism transformed Portuguese art, and from 1930 onwards modern art in Portugal reflected resistance to the Estado Novo and the social and cultural tensions of the time.