MNAR – The National Museum of Art of Romania

Hosted in the former Royal Palace, MNAR is the best place to get accustomed to Romanian art but also to see European big names.

The European Gallery, which was formed with the works from the collection of King Carol I and further supplemented with pieces from other important politicians and intellectuals, is split by nations, with each major one having its own space, with works by artists such as Jacopo Tintoretto, Lucas Cranach the Elder, Hans Memling, El Greco, Rembrandt van Rijn, Claude Monet and many more.

In the Romanian Medieval Art Gallery you are able to see a lot of icons from all of Romania’s historic regions, or attires of the former nobility. It is the perfect place to delve in Romania’s deeper past and see what sets it apart from the rest of Europe, as the art here reflects the meeting of eastern and western elements.

The Romanian Modern Art Gallery leads you through the westernization process that the Romanians embarked on at the beginning of the 1800s which you can witness in exciting family portraits that present older men in Ottoman dress while their wives or children already wore Parisian style outfits. In the second half of the century you have a matured painting and sculpture that quickly assimilated the lessons of western art, when Romanian painters were founding the first art academy, like Theodor Aman, or travelled to France to paint en plein-air, like Nicolae Grigorescu. Finally, the exhibition walks us into the XXth century, with a high diversity of modern art, from the breakthrough sculptural work of Constantin Brâncuși to the surrealist or constructivist experiments of the Jewish Romanian avant-garde artists, like Victor Brauner and Max Hermann Maxy (the founder of the museum in 1948 and its first director).

Alongside all these, which are in the permanent exhibitions of the institution, the museum also hosts several temporary exhibitions each year, of both Romanian and international artists, so take a chance and see what you’ll find!

MNAC – National Museum of Contemporary Art

With its controversial placement in the Parliament Palace, MNAC is the largest official institution that deals with contemporary art. Functioning more like a kunsthalle, as its exhibitions are all temporary, it does however present at times works form its vast collection or new acquisitions of emerging and established local artists. In the other exhibitions you can see both Romanian and international artists, be it grouped or individually, but it does tend to focus more on the local scene overall. Great place to take the pulse of the contemporary art here and also to get inside Ceaușescu’s palace.

MARe – Museum of Recent Art

The first private contemporary art museum of Bucharest after the Romanian Revolution of 1989, MARe proposes a wide selection of relevant Romanian artists active after 1965. Located in the northern posh part of the city, it benefits of a venue specially made for it that echoes the building which existed on its place before that belonged to the Mediterranean architectural style popular in interwar Bucharest. It has a main exhibition in which it features works from its own collection, mainly paintings, that may be rotated every few years and also organizes temporary thematic group exhibitions of artists from Romania. Definite pick to see an overview of Romanian art of the last decades and to check out the latest tendencies in current art but also to get away from the bustling city center and see a different face of Bucharest.

Author: Adrian, team member of Tours in Bucharest