One Museum, Four Collections

FUNDAÇÃO CENTRO CULTURAL DE BELÉM COLLECTION 

Established in 1991, when the Centro Cultural de Belém opened, this collection was founded on the conviction that the new complex’s spaces should house works by leading Portuguese artists. In this way, the CCB became a driving force in disseminating and stimulating contemporary artistic creation. The initial group of works, consisting mainly of painting and sculpture, brought together established artists such as Maria Helena Vieira da Silva, Júlio Pomar, and Menez. They were joined by figures from the following generation, including Noronha da Costa, Alberto Carneiro, José de Guimarães, Emília Nadal, Graça Morais, and Manuel Amado. The group was augmented by multiples by foreign artists, notably Robert Motherwell and Niki de Saint Phalle. Works by a generation that came to prominence in the 1980s and 1990s were also added, including those of Pedro Calapez, Rui Chafes, and Pedro Proença. Finally, interventions conceived for specific locations in the building, in dialogue with the architecture of Vittorio Gregotti and Manuel Salgado, commissioned to Fernanda Fragateiro, Alberto Carneiro, Carlos Nogueira, and Pedro Cabrita Reis were added. 

After decades of intermittent activity, the Foundation’s acquisition policy takes on a new framework in 2026 as part of the MAC/CCB museum project. From now on, the collection is positioned as a strategic instrument for deepening and expanding the strands of artistic and curatorial research that run through the other collections and the museum’s programme. 

BERARDO COLLECTION 

The Berardo Collection offers a distinctive journey through modern and contemporary art, from the historical avant-gardes to post-war practices. José Berardo assembled the collection throughout the 1990s and 2000s, initially with advice from Francisco Capelo and later from other specialists and curators, through a systematic acquisition programme. 

From Cubism to Surrealism, Russian Constructivism to Pop Art, and Minimalism to Conceptualism, the collection traces some of the most decisive transformations in the history of Western art. Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, Liubov Popova, Piet Mondrian, Joan Miró, Max Ernst, Francis Bacon, Yves Klein, Andy Warhol, and Frank Stella share this territory with Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso, Helena Almeida, and Paula Rego. 

At the MAC/CCB, the collection serves as a starting point for revisiting art history. The curatorial approaches that bring it to life seek to set Portuguese production against the international contexts with which it intersects, while also questioning the genealogies endorsed by the canon. 

ELLIPSE COLLECTION – PORTUGUESE STATE CONTEMPORARY ART COLLECTION 

Established between 2000 and 2006 on the initiative of banker João Rendeiro, and structured by a curatorial board comprising Alexandre Melo, Manuel E. González, and Pedro Lapa, the Ellipse Collection is inseparable from the process of internationalisation and globalisation that shaped the art world at the turn of the millennium, documenting some of the defining transformations of contemporary art. 

Acquired by the Portuguese State in 2022, the collection became public heritage. This safeguarded one of the most significant collections of contemporary art assembled in Portugal in recent history. The collection spans the late 1970s to the early 21st century.  Among the artists represented are John Baldessari, Bernd & Hilla Becher, Dan Graham, Rebecca Horn, Richard Prince, Rosemarie Trockel, Fischli & Weiss, Thomas Schütte, Thomas Hirschhorn, Pierre Huyghe, and Wolfgang Tillmans, alongside Júlia Ventura, Julião Sarmento, João Maria Gusmão & Pedro Paiva, and Kiluanji Kia Henda. 

TEIXEIRA DE FREITAS COLLECTION 

Founded in 2002 by Luiz A. Teixeira de Freitas, a Brazilian lawyer based in Portugal, the Teixeira de Freitas Collection developed during its first decade through an acquisitions programme focused on the relationship between art and architecture. The programme, which also engaged with the legacy of Constructivism and geometric abstraction, was developed with curator Adriano Pedrosa between 2002 and 2013.  It brought together artists including Damián Ortega, Fernanda Gomes, Mateo López, Cildo Meireles, and Jonathas de Andrade. 

At the end of this phase, the collection gradually broadened its research to encompass conceptual art of the 1960s and 1970s and institutional critique, while also beginning to acquire publications and artists’ books. It also established a geographical focus encompassing Europe, Latin America and the Middle East. Artists in this strand include, on the one hand, Robert Barry, Hans Haacke, Seth Siegelaub, and Gordon Matta-Clark, and, on the other, Emily Jacir and Taysir Batniji.