National Art Museum of Catalonia
Catalan art from Romanesque murals to the 20th century, in the Palau Nacional on Montjuïc.
The museum occupies the Palau Nacional, built as the centrepiece of the 1929 Barcelona International Exposition to designs by Eugeni Cendoya and Enric Catà under Pere Domènech i Roura. It sits at the head of the terraced approach from Plaça d'Espanya, above the Magic Fountain, with a domed neo-baroque silhouette and a vast oval hall inside. The art collections moved in and opened to the public in 1934, and the building was extensively refitted for museum use in the 1990s under Gae Aulenti.
The museum holds what is generally considered the finest collection of Romanesque mural painting in the world, detached from remote Pyrenean churches in the 1920s and remounted on replicas of their original apses. Other departments cover Gothic altarpieces, Renaissance and Baroque painting including works by El Greco, Velázquez and Zurbarán, and Catalan modernisme and noucentisme, with furniture and decorative arts by Gaudí and his contemporaries, plus photography and numismatics.
Highlights
- Romanesque apse paintings from Pyrenean churches, including Sant Climent de Taüll
- Gothic altarpieces by Bernat Martorell and Jaume Huguet
- Modernisme rooms with works by Casas, Rusiñol and furniture by Gaudí
- Rooftop viewpoint over Montjuïc and the city
