The São Paulo Museum of Art was planned and founded in 1947 by Senator Assis Chateaubriand, the owner of a chain of newspapers, radio and television stations, the Diarios Associados, his idea being to create a suitable centre where all the problems connected with art could be discussed and examined in a lively and inspiring way. The work was begun on quite a small scale in a building designed as a training school for young teachers.
Later, exhibitions were organised from time to time illustrating the history of art by means of photographs and documents and still later, using original materials, simplified types of exhibition were arranged which could be easily understood by an untrained public.
Some time after this an auditorium was added followed by a room where periodical exhibitions were held with the object of emphasising that the Museum had a definite interest in contemporary art and especially in work of a vital quality. Last of all our Picture Gallery was opened for the display of our first donations.
As regards the content of our collection, the visitor will be surprised by the historical gaps. Various schools of the most famous periods are unrepresented, while on the other hand there is a considerable number of works of particular schools and by certain masters.
This lack of balance is due to the fact that sometimes the gifts to the Museum show a bias in favour of those painters who enjoy a certain popularity, and is also because of the difficulty in finding paintings representative of the artists who are indispensable to the composition of a panoramic picture of the history of art.
PM Bardi