Source : 'Digital Catalogue of public art colecctions in Venezuelan museums, capital region, National Art Gallery' (Catálogo digital de la colección estatal en instituciones museísticas, región capital, Galería de Arte Nacional)
Published by : Venezuelan Culture Ministry and National Art Gallery, 2005.
"The National Art Gallery is a museum dedicated to the promotion and conservation of Venezuelan art from all times. It has a collection of more than 6,000 works of art, which cover more than four centuries of national plastic expression.
In its collection there are works from the pre Hispanic era, as well as from anonymous painters and religious art from colonial times. There are works from masters of academic painting, itinerant artists of the XIX century, landscape artists from the 'Caracas School' and the 'Arts Circle', as well as from the initiators of abstractionism and the most prominent contemporary artists.
Penetrable, Jesús Soto 1993/94
Created in 1974, the National Art Gallery opens its doors in May 1976. It is currently located in the 'Plaza de los Museos' (Museum's Square), the most important cultural area in Caracas, designed by architect Carlos Raúl Villanueva, who in 1935 also designed the museum's historical building. In 1990 it acquired the title of National Art Gallery Foundation.
Public services:
The Gallery has a permanent exhibition and also touring ones, with works from the most important public and private Venezuelan collections, allowing visitors to meet esthetical expressions from our past, as well as new propositions of contemporary art.
Its programme of touring exhibitions travels constantly around the country, accompanied by supporting activities, special publications and educational/ promotional events, such as:
Guided tours
Workshops for young people and children
Concerts
Forums and talks
The National Art Gallery dedicates a significant amount of resources to its programme of specialized publications about Venezuelan art, which includes brochures, books and study guides, as well as promotional material such as posters, postcards and t-shirts.
The Education and Extension Management offers guided tours to different types of visitors: schools, universities, companies, tourists and others. Other important educational activities are the permanent and crafts' holiday workshops, such as:
Alejandro Otero
Rotor 1968
The 'space with no age' workshop: provides meetings between people more than 45 years old.
Family workshop: promotes the coming together of families and general public.
Creative expression workshop: Oriented towards the possibilities of creation, under the concept of the integration of arts.
Parents/children workshop: Plastic art activities, visits and meetings with plastic artists and museum institutions.
Technique workshop: Theoretical/practical workshops about diverse artistic creation techniques (drawing, watercolours, bookbinding, painting, etc).
Summer workshops: children, young people and adults can develop their creative potential.
Drawing classes with live activities: teachers and students from high schools and universities use different spaces of the National Art Gallery as their drawing classrooms, complementing the lessons with corporal activities, dance and music.
The National Art Gallery in your space: This programme goes to your classroom, taking an experience based on the contents of a guided tour.
Workshops in your space: This programme goes to educational centres and offers creative expression workshops developed in our museum.
Carlos Cruz-Diez
Physicromie N.329
The National Plastic Arts Information Centre (CINAP) has a very important library and data base about Venezuelan art, available to students and researchers. The following collections can be found in it:
Bibliography: books, brochures, documentary and seminar material, symposiums, congresses, thesis and CD- ROMS.
Periodical publications: Bulletins and magazines
Iconography: More than 100.000 pictures in different formats black and white, colour, slides, negatives (4 x 5; 6 x 6; 35 mm ) and paper.
Video recordings: videos about Venezuelan artists and tapes compiling the events organized by the National Art Gallery.
Newspaper library: it has more than 300.000 press articles related to Venezuelan visual arts.
The CINAP offers the following services:
Reference
Inter-library loans
Selective dissemination of information
Information promotion
Bibliographic Database consultation
Loans of bibliographic material (rooms or circulating)
Reprography
General and specialized bibliography
Video projection and copying
Information by e-mail
Duplication of pictures from the National Art Gallery Collection
Image digitalization of some works (referential)
Image digitalization of the art works from the National Art Gallery Foundation for its publication
Reprovit
The National Art Gallery has a library and a shop with art publications, posters, diaries, notebooks, objects and crafts.
The National Art Gallery also offers its spaces for cultural events when they comply with the regular activities carried out in the museum".
