Pinacoteca de São Paulo

The Pinacoteca is the oldest art museum in São Paulo, founded by the state government in 1905. Its main building, now called Pina Luz, was designed by Ramos de Azevedo with Domiciano Rossi for the Liceu de Artes e Ofícios on land beside the Jardim da Luz. Work began in 1897, but the building was never fully finished: the planned dome was not built and the brick walls were left exposed. Between 1993 and 1998 Paulo Mendes da Rocha reworked the interior, adding walkways across the inner courtyards and covering them with glass, a project that won the Mies van der Rohe Prize for Latin America.

The collection numbers more than 12,000 pieces and concentrates on Brazilian painting of the 19th and 20th centuries. The long-term display, Pinacoteca: Acervo, is the place to see artists such as Almeida Júnior, Pedro Alexandrino, Antônio Parreiras and Oscar Pereira da Silva, alongside later modernists. The Brasiliana collection covers foreign artists who worked in or depicted Brazil, and the Nemirovsky collection adds modernist masterpieces. A sculpture garden and installations from the Roger Wright collection are on show until 2028, and the museum runs around 18 temporary exhibitions a year.

The Pinacoteca now has three sites. Pina Contemporânea, opened in 2023 on Avenida Tiradentes, has a covered public square, a large basement gallery and a café, and is integrated into the park. Pina Estação, a former 1914 railway warehouse in Largo General Osório, hosts temporary exhibitions and shares its building with the Memorial da Resistência. Current shows include a Beatriz Milhazes print exhibition at Pina Estação until 14 March 2027.

All three buildings open Wednesday to Monday from 10:00 to 18:00, with last entry at 17:00, and are closed on Tuesdays. Tickets are sold online through the museum's ticketing platform. Allow two hours for Pina Luz alone and half a day if you add Pina Contemporânea and a walk in the Jardim da Luz.

The Museu da Língua Portuguesa is also on Praça da Luz, inside the Estação da Luz railway station, so the two make a natural pairing. The Pinacoteca suits art lovers who want to understand Brazilian painting rather than European masters, and it complements MASP's international collection. Note that the Tuesday closure is the opposite of MASP's Monday closure, which is useful when planning a week.