The ''Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía'' ("Queen Sofía National Museum Art Centre"; MNCARS) is Spain's national museum of 20th-century art. The museum was officially inaugurated on September 10, 1992, and is named for Queen Sofía. It is located in

Madrid Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...

, near the Atocha train and metro stations, at the southern end of the so-called Golden Triangle of Art (located along the

Paseo del Prado The Paseo del Prado is one of the main boulevards in Madrid, Spain. It runs north–south between the Plaza de Cibeles and the Plaza del Emperador Carlos V (also known as Plaza de Madrid Atocha railway station, Atocha), with the Plaza de Cánov ...

and also comprising the and the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza). The museum is mainly dedicated to Spanish art. Highlights of the museum include collections of Spain's two greatest 20th-century masters,

Pablo Picasso Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, Ceramic art, ceramicist, and Scenic ...

and

Salvador Dalí Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, Marquess of Dalí of Púbol (11 May 190423 January 1989), known as Salvador Dalí ( ; ; ), was a Spanish Surrealism, surrealist artist renowned for his technical skill, precise draftsmanship, ...

. The most famous masterpiece in the museum is Picasso's 1937 painting '' Guernica''. 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. In 2021, due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

restrictions, it attracted 1,643,108 visitors, up 32 percent from 2020, but well below 2019 attendance. In 2021 it ranked eighth on the

list of most-visited art museums A primary source for 2024 figures is the Art Newspaper whose most recent annual survey was published in March 2025. Other major sources included the newsroom of the Smithsonian Institution, the French Ministry of Culture, and the Association of ...

in the world. 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.

Collection

The museum is mainly dedicated to Spanish art. Highlights of the museum include collections of Spain's two greatest 20th-century masters,

and

. 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 art represented in the collection include works by

Francis Bacon Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban (; 22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626) was an English philosopher and statesman who served as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England under King James I. Bacon argued for the importance of nat ...

, Joseph Beuys, Pierre Bonnard, Georges Braque,

Alexander Calder Alexander "Sandy" Calder (; July 22, 1898 – November 11, 1976) was an American sculptor known both for his innovative mobile (sculpture), mobiles (kinetic sculptures powered by motors or air currents) that embrace chance in their aesthetic, hi ...

Robert Delaunay Robert Delaunay (; 12 April 1885 – 25 October 1941) was a French artist of the School of Paris movement; who, with his wife Sonia Delaunay and others, co-founded the Orphism (art), Orphism art movement, noted for its use of strong colours and g ...

Max Ernst Max Ernst (; 2 April 1891 – 1 April 1976) was a German-born painter, sculptor, printmaker, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst was a primary pioneer of the Dada movement and surrealism in Europe. He had no formal artistic trai ...

Lucio Fontana Lucio Fontana (; 19 February 1899 – 7 September 1968) was an Italian Argentines, Argentine-Italian painter, sculptor, and theorist. He is known as the founder of Spatialism and exponent of Abstract art, abstract painting as the f ...

, Sarah Grilo, Damien Hirst,

Donald Judd Donald Clarence Judd (June 3, 1928February 12, 1994) was an American artist associated with minimalism.Tate Modern websit"Tate Modern Past Exhibitions Donald Judd" Retrieved on February 19, 2009. In his work, Judd sought autonomy and clarity for ...

, Vasily Kandinsky,

Paul Klee Paul Klee (; 18 December 1879 – 29 June 1940) was a Swiss-born German artist. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. Klee was a natural draftsman who experimented wi ...

, Yves Klein, Fernand Léger,

Jacques Lipchitz Jacques Lipchitz (26 May 1973) was a Lithuanian-born French-American Cubist sculptor. Lipchitz retained highly figurative and legible components in his work leading up to 1915–16, after which naturalist and descriptive elements were muted, domi ...

René Magritte René François Ghislain Magritte (; 21 November 1898 – 15 August 1967) was a Belgium, Belgian surrealist artist known for his depictions of familiar objects in unfamiliar, unexpected contexts, which often provoked questions about the nature ...

Henry Moore Henry Spencer Moore (30 July 1898 – 31 August 1986) was an English artist. He is best known for his semi-abstract art, abstract monumental Bronze sculpture, bronze sculptures which are located around the world as public works of art. Moore ...

, Bruce Nauman, Gabriel Orozco, Nam June Paik,

Man Ray Man Ray (born Emmanuel Radnitzky; August 27, 1890 – November 18, 1976) was an American naturalized French visual artist who spent most of his career in Paris. He was a significant contributor to the Dada and Surrealism, Surrealist movements, ...

, Diego Rivera,

Mark Rothko Mark Rothko ( ; Markus Yakovlevich Rothkowitz until 1940; September 25, 1903February 25, 1970) was an American abstract art, abstract painter. He is best known for his color field paintings that depicted irregular and painterly rectangular reg ...

, Julian Schnabel, Richard Serra, Cindy Sherman, Clyfford Still, Yves Tanguy, and Wolf Vostell.

Gallery

History of the building

Hospital

The building is on the site of the first General Hospital of Madrid. King Philip II centralised all the hospitals that were scattered throughout the court. In the eighteenth century, King Ferdinand VI decided to build a new hospital because the facilities at the time were insufficient for the city. The building was designed by architect José de Hermosilla and his successor Francisco Sabatini who did the majority of the work. In 1805, after numerous work stoppages, the building was to assume its function that it had been built for, which was being a hospital, although only one-third of the proposed project by Sabatini was completed. Since then it has undergone various modifications and additions until, in 1969, it was closed down as a hospital.

Art museum

Extensive modern renovations and additions to the old building were made starting in 1980. The central building of the museum was once an 18th-century hospital. The building functioned as the Centro del Arte (Art Centre) from 1986 until established as the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in 1988. In 1988, portions of the new museum were opened to the public, mostly in temporary configurations; that same year it was decreed by the Ministry of Culture as a national museum. Its architectural identity was radically changed in 1989 by Ian Ritchie with the addition of three glass circulation towers.

Expansion

An 8000 m² (86,000 ft²) expansion costing €92 million designed by French architect Jean Nouvel opened in October 2005. The extension includes spaces for temporary exhibitions, an auditorium of 500 seats, and a 200-seat auditorium, a bookshop, restaurants and administration offices. Ducks Scéno was consultant for scenographic equipment of auditoriums and Arau Acustica for acoustic studies.

Other facilities

Reina Sofía has other two places where several exhibitions usually take place. These are the Crystal Palace and the Velázquez Palace, both in Retiro Park. File:Reina Sofía front gate.jpg, Front entrance File:Museum Reina Sofía Madrid Spain Espana this is a front photo close up at the Queen Sofia Museum in 2011 month of June.jpg, Close up of the front of the Reina Sofía in Madrid Spain. File:Ampliación del Reina Sofía (2).jpg, Reina Sofía Museum File:Reina Sofía interior.jpg, Interior gallery photo inside the Reina Sofía Museum File:MNCARS ampliación 10.jpg, Inside the Reina Sofía Museum File:Palacio de Cristal, Retiro, Madrid.jpg, Crystal Palace in the Retiro Park, a Reina Sofía exhibition centre

Notable works

*'' Guernica'' by

*'' The Great Masturbator'' by

*'' Equal-Parallel/Guernica-Bengasi'' by Richard Serra *'' 6 TV Dé-Coll/age'' by Wolf Vostell

Popular culture

The museum features, as a major protagonist, in

Jim Jarmusch James Robert Jarmusch ( ; born January 22, 1953) is an American film director, screenwriter and musician. He has been a major proponent of independent film, independent cinema since the 1980s, directing films such as ''Stranger Than Paradise'' ...

's '' The Limits of Control'' (2009). In the 2003 Spanish film '' Noviembre'', the school entrance scenes and some performance scenes were shot in the square in front of the museum.

References

;Informational notes ;Citations

External links

*
Virtual tour of the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía
provided by Google Arts & Culture * {{DEFAULTSORT:Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia Buildings and structures completed in 1805 Hospitals established in 1805 Hospitals disestablished in 1969 Arte Reina Sofía Reina Sofia Reina Sofía Reina Sofía Reina Sofia Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia Defunct hospitals in Spain Art museums and galleries established in 1992 Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia Buildings and structures in Embajadores neighborhood, Madrid Ferdinand VI