The Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea was founded in 1883 on the initiative of the then Minister Guido Baccelli and is dedicated to modern and contemporary art.
The present building, the Palazzo delle Belle Arti (Palace of Fine Arts) was designed by prominent Italian architect Cesare Bazzani. It was completed between 1911 and 1915. The facade features exterior architectural friezes by sculptors Ermenegildo Luppi, Adolfo Laurenti, and Giovanni Prini, with four figures of Fame holding bronze wreaths, sculpted by Adolfo Pantaresi and Albino Candoni. The museum was expanded by Bazzani in 1934, and again in 2000.
The museum displays about 1100 paintings and sculptures of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, of which it has the largest collection in Italy. Among the Italian artists represented are Giacomo Balla, Umberto Boccioni, Alberto Burri, Antonio Canova, Giorgio de Chirico, Lucio Fontana, Amedeo Modigliani, Giacomo Manzù, Vittorio Matteo Corcos, and Giorgio Morandi.
The museum also holds some works by foreign artists, among them Braque, Calder, Cézanne, Degas, Duchamp, Giacometti, Kandinsky, Mondrian, Monet, Jackson Pollock, Rodin, and Van Gogh.
References:House of the Blackheads (Melngalvju nams) is a building situated in the old town of Riga. The original building was erected during the first third of the 14th century for the Brotherhood of Blackheads, a guild for unmarried German merchants in Riga. Major works were done in the years 1580 and 1886, adding most of the ornaments.
The structure was bombed to a ruin by the Germans June 28, 1941 and the remains demolished by the Soviets in 1948. The current reconstruction was erected from 1995 to 1999. Today the House of Blackheads serves as a museum and sometimes concert hall.