Museu Nacional de Belas-Artes

Opposite, on the other side of Avenida Rio Branco, is the newly refurbished Museu Nacional de Belas-Artes (Av Rio Branco 199, T021-2240 0068, http://www.mnba.org.br, Tue-Fri 1000-1800, Sat and Sun 1400-1800, free) . Fine art in Rio and in Brazil was, as a whole, stimulated by the arrival in 1808 of the Portuguese royal family. In 1816 the Academia de Belas-Artes was founded by another Frenchman, Joaquim Lebreton. This building was constructed 1906-1908 to house the national gallery and contains the best collection of art in the country. This includes depictions of Brazil by European visitors such as Dutchman Frans Post and Frenchman Jean-Baptiste Debret, and the best of 20th-century Brazilian art by important names such as modernist and social realist Cândido Portinari, Emiliano Di Cavalcanti (famous for his iconographic images of black Cariocas at a time when racism was institutionalized in Rio), Tarsila do Amaral (founder of the first major school of Brazilian Art, antropofagismo, which strongly influenced tropicália) and the brutalist art deco sculptor Victor Brecheret. Another gallery contains further works by foreign artists and the temporary exhibition hall houses many of Rio de Janeiro’s most important international exhibitions.