Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de La Habana

The National Art Museum Of Cuba, In Two Separate Buildings Several Blocks Apart Under One Ticket, Holding The Finest Collection Of Cuban Art Anywhere · Havana, La Habana

Cuba's national art museum is two buildings rather than one, several blocks apart, and most visitors see whichever they walked into and leave believing that was the museum. The Edificio de Arte Cubano on Trocadero is a cool modernist block from 1954 holding the best collection of Cuban art in existence - colonial portraiture, the extraordinary generation of the 1930s and 1940s with Wifredo Lam, Amelia Pelaez, Victor Manuel and Rene Portocarrero, and rooms of post-revolutionary and contemporary work that are far more argumentative than outsiders expect. The Edificio de Arte Universal, in the sumptuous 1927 Centro Asturiano on Parque Central, holds the European old masters, the Greek and Roman antiquities and an Egyptian collection, under a stained-glass ceiling worth the entry by itself. One ticket covers both, and asking for it is the single most useful thing a visitor can do here - it is also air-conditioned, which makes this the right way to spend the worst hours of a Havana afternoon.

Trocadero e/ Zulueta y Monserrate, Havana, Havana, La Habana, Cuba

Both buildings keep daytime hours and CLOSE ON DIFFERENT DAYS of the week, so check each before planning a visit around one. A single ticket covers both and is valid the same day. A separate camera fee has applied. Large bags go to the cloakroom. Power cuts have closed galleries at short notice; the Cuban building has been closed for works in the past.

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