Cuba Guide
Havana
Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes
Address: Palacio de Bellas Artes: Trocadero, a two-minute walk north along Agramonte from the Parque Central; Centro Asturiano: on the east border of the Parque Central
Opening time: Tues– Sat 10am–6pm, Sun 10am–2pm
Price: $5CUC for one building, $8CUC for both, $2CUC for guided tour, under-15s free
Divided between two buildings, the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes is the most impressive and spectacular of Havana's museums and by far the largest collection of art in the country. The museum stands head and shoulders above the vast majority of its city rivals, presented and put together with a degree of professionalism still quite rare for this kind of attraction in Cuba. The large and rather plain-looking Art Deco Palacio de Bellas Artes is where the entire collection had been housed since 1954 but is now the showcase for exclusively Cuban art. This is a detailed examination of the history of Cuban painting and sculpture, including everything from portraits by Spanish colonists to Revolution-inspired work, though pre-Columbian art is notably absent. Artists from the rest of the world are represented in the Centro Asturiano, with an impressive breadth and depth of different kinds and styles of art, including ancient Roman ceramics and nineteenth-century Japanese paintings.