The National Museum of Contemporary Art (MNAC)

Its mission defined in its creation in 1911 (with funds from national and foreign works of art from 1850), and reaffirmed in its reopening in 1994, with assumptions regarding the study of collections and its extension to the contemporary (always articulated with a coherent and distinctive programmatic line), continues to investigate and disseminate the history and Portuguese artistic creation from 1850 to the present.
With an exhibition program in close relationship with the Educational Service program, the museum aims to reach different audiences of different age groups and different levels of artistic literacy.
We offer, in addition to the exhibitions, a wide program of meetings (with collectors, artists, art historians, scientists and other researchers from various fields of knowledge), in order to broaden the range of offerings and, consequently, the public. With a comprehensive and dynamic catalog publishing policy, particularly in the most prominent exhibitions concerning the research of the most relevant artists in the history of contemporary art, we also contribute to the dissemination of research and the enhancement of our artistic heritage.
To this end, we also seek to expand partnerships, not only with publishers, universities, and national and foreign museums, but also with potential sponsors that help us deepen and broaden our research and dissemination actions.
MNAC, installed in Chiado, and now also disseminated through the Google Art Project platform, is a privileged showcase of Portuguese culture and art, attracting a growing number of national and foreign visitors and constituting a pole of cultural and artistic attractiveness. and reinforcing the interest of more demanding tourism.

Thus, our mission can be summarized in the following points:
1. Investigate and exhibit the collection, revealing more aspects of artistic creation, from 1850 to the present, namely through the study and dissemination of less worked artists (although not neglecting the best known), challenging historical prejudices;
2. enhance the knowledge of the contexts of creation, expanding the relationship between art, history, thought, science and daily life, through exhibitions, lectures, courses, conferences and publications;
3. create conditions for dialogue between the MNAC collection and other national or international public or private collections, contributing to the deepening of the knowledge of Art and, therefore, contributing to the national artistic panorama and to the internationalization of Portuguese art in the temporal spectrum of the museum and in the various areas of artistic expression.

In short, we work to make the museum a space of knowledge and reflection of our nineteenth and nineteenth century artistic past, but also of critical acceptance of contemporary artistic proposals, thus fully assuming its collection and the mission with which the Republic constituted it, as National Museum of Contemporary Art.