National Art Gallery (Caracas)

The National Art Gallery (Galería de Arte Nacional; GAN) also known as Gallery of National Art is located in the Plaza Morelos area of Caracas, Venezuela.[1][2] The museum opened in May 1976. In 2009 it moved to a new building designed by Carlos Gómez de Llerena, Venezuela's largest museum building.[3]

Eastern façade of the gallery.

History
The former home of the National Art Gallery, now the Fine Art Museum

The museum was housed until 2009 in a neo-classical building near Los Caobos Park.[4] The building was designed in 1935 for the Fine Art Museum (Museo de Bellas Artes).[5] by Carlos Raul Villanueva, one of the best-known architects of Venezuela.[6] The facade incorporates reliefs by Francisco Narváez, Venezuela's first modernist sculptor.[6]

In 2009 President Hugo Chávez inaugurated a new building for the National Art Gallery, allowing the Fine Art Museum to reoccupy its old building.

Collections

It features works of art by Venezuelan artists and artists such as Camille Pissarro who spent time in Venezuela. The collections span some five centuries from the colonial days featuring colonial Caracas and the period of Simón Bolívar.[7]

La Pastora, Caracas. Drawing by Pissarro

The museum has been extolled as a “patriotic celebration of national artists” reminiscent Venezuelan society.[2]

There are more than 4,000 pieces in its eleven rooms (arranged in a circular layout), with international and Venezuelan art.[6][3] It has paintings of more than 40 Venezuelan artists.[5][8] The works include pre-Hispanic pieces, colonial-era paintings, sculptures, and Venezuelan works of modern art.

Miranda en La Carraca (1896), Arturo Michelena's depiction of Francisco de Miranda's imprisonment in Cádiz, Spain (oil on canvas, 196.6 x 245.5 cm).

Temporary exhibitions exhibit artistic culture from pre-Hispanic times to the modern kinetic art.[5] Meyer Weismann of Caracas held his first solo exhibition of Venezuelan culture in this museum.[9] Other famous artists whose work is exhibited in the museum are Arturo Michelena, Armando Reverón, Carlos Cruz-Diez, Pájaro and Jesús Soto. The museum's most notable piece is Michelena’s 1896 painting of Francisco de Miranda in a Spanish jail, Miranda en La Carraca.[3] Its collection of modern sculpture includes works by Abigail Varela, Pedro Barreto, Colette Delozanne and Carlos Mendoza. An account of the collection may be found in the Spanish edition of the Wikipedia.

References
  1. Fodor's South America, 7th Edition. Fodor's Travel Publications. 7 November 2006. pp. 732–. ISBN 978-1-4000-1648-8. Retrieved 24 May 2013.
  2. Elizabeth Gackstetter Nichols; Kimberly J.. Morse (2010). Venezuela. ABC-CLIO. pp. 281–. ISBN 978-1-59884-569-3. Retrieved 27 May 2013.
  3. "Galería de Arte Nacional". Lonely Planet. Com. Retrieved 27 May 2013.
  4. Fodor's Travel Publications, Inc (7 November 2006). Fodor's South America, 7th Edition. Fodor's Travel Publications. pp. 732–. ISBN 978-1-4000-1648-8. Retrieved 27 May 2013.
  5. Kohn, Beth (2007). Lonely Planet Venezuela. Lonely Planet. pp. 68–. ISBN 978-1-74104-545-1. Retrieved 24 May 2013.
  6. "National Gallery of Art". The Embassy of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in the United states of America. Archived from the original on 19 October 2017. Retrieved 27 May 2013.
  7. Mercer Human Res Consulting, Inc. (20 March 2009). The Global Manager's Guide to Living and Working Abroad: Western Europe and the Americas: Western Europe and the Americas. ABC-CLIO. pp. 283–. ISBN 978-0-313-35884-5. Retrieved 27 May 2013.
  8. "Gallery of National Art". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 27 May 2013.
  9. Kristin G. Congdon; Kara Kelley Hallmark (2002). Artists from Latin American cultures: a biographical dictionary. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 310–. ISBN 978-0-313-31544-2. Retrieved 27 May 2013.

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