Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain

The Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (MNCARS, also called the Museo Reina Sofía) is Spain's national museum of 20th-century art. The museum was officially inaugurated in 1992, and is named for Queen Sofía.

The museum is mainly dedicated to Spanish art. Highlights of the museum include excellent collections of Spain's two greatest 20th-century masters, Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dalí. Certainly, the most famous masterpiece in the museum is Picasso's painting Guernica. The Reina Sofía collection has works by artists such as Joan Miró, Eduardo Chillida, Pablo Gargallo, Julio González, Luis Gordillo, Juan Gris, José Gutiérrez Solana, Lucio Muñoz, Jorge Oteiza, Julio Romero de Torres, Pablo Serrano, and Antoni Tàpies.

International artists are few in the collection, but there are works by Francis Bacon, Joseph Beuys, Pierre Bonnard, Georges Braque, Alexander Calder, Robert Delaunay, Max Ernst, Lucio Fontana, Damien Hirst, Donald Judd, Vasily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Yves Klein, Fernand Léger, Jacques Lipchitz, René Magritte, Henry Moore, Bruce Nauman, Gabriel Orozco, Nam June Paik, Man Ray, Diego Rivera, Mark Rothko, Julian Schnabel, Richard Serra, Cindy Sherman, Clyfford Still, Yves Tanguy, and Wolf Vostell.

Along with its extensive collection, the museum offers a mixture of national and international temporary exhibitions in its many galleries, making it one of the world's largest museums for modern and contemporary art.

It also hosts a free-access library specializing in art, with a collection of over 100,000 books, over 3,500 sound recordings, and almost 1,000 videos.

References:

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User Reviews

Michael Tsapos (5 months ago)
Great art, no complains on that end! Although, the layout is incredibly confusing. Ended up buying an audio tour and still got lost, but once we got on track was great. Highly would recommend the audio tour and getting a lay of the land from the staff when you enter.

Howard W (5 months ago)
If you’re a Dali, Picasso or modern art fan, or interested in the visual culture of the far right and far left in Spain, this is definitely the place for you. Be careful when you turn up - the queue can be massive or totally non existent depending on the time of day. Well worth a visit

Lorna W (6 months ago)
This is another must see for art lovers in Madrid. It features one of Picasso’s most important work, Guernica. There are also some very important pieces to trace development of his work. His contemporaries like Dali & Man Ray are exhibited side by side. It’s a good display of some of the greatest artists in the turn of the last century.

Anna Kashirskaia (6 months ago)
Very beautiful and full collection but several problems are present all at once: 1) with all due respect I do not understand why it’s not possible paying together the tickets and audio guides. 2) The audio guides cover 1% of the art displayed and sincerely not the most curious ones. There is no minimal explanation of other works of art, neither the material and techniques used in English, Spanish only. Few works we could not find in the room it was saying and the sense of the guide was chaotic enough and didn’t cover all the rooms, and as written above, very few pieces explained and also explained quite partially. 3) The main thing that drove me crazy is how the museum is not made for people. There are no any kind of seats and if you lean on to the wall or sit bend on knees, the staff comes immediately and communicates you it’s forbidden. The space is huge and you can spend hours inside. Why not make it visitors-friendly and comfortable? I had a backache and couldn’t wait to leave no matter my curiosity and interest in the collection. I think you would be able to report the staff forbidding you sitting on the floor of a museum in countries like US and Germany. Hope things will change with the time, especially in such a friendly and innovative city (Chat GPT on Madrid tourist official website is something I didn’t expect and works flawlessly).

Nika Y (7 months ago)
I spent hours here, mesmerised by the intricate detail of the art works. The museum was not crowded which made it much more enjoyable! Helpful staff recommended starting on Level 2, then 4 and 1. (3 was not open) Highly recommend setting aside a couple of hours to visit whilst in Madrid!

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