MUSEO NACIONAL DE ARTE

The National Art Museum (MNA) is housed in the Diez de Medina palace, built in 1775. Its façade corresponds to the last period of Andean Baroque.

On the second floor, an exterior gallery displays richly decorated pillars and arches. The tiled roof is typically colonial. The corner of the building is adorned with a loggia (open gallery), with a fountain in the center. Access to the museum is via a patio paved with black and white stone, where a majestic interior stone portico unfurls a large semicircular arch between two pillars. The whole is sumptuously sculpted with shells, flowers and feathers.

The museum's permanent exhibition is devoted to indigenous and mixed-race art in Bolivia. It features over 70 artistic creations from the pre-Hispanic, colonial, republican and contemporary periods, by both indigenous and non-indigenous artists. In the first room, you can see reproductions of rock art, photos of the Chullpares de Macaya in Oruro and Tiwanaku paintings by Fernando Peñaranda (1919) and Jorge de la Reza (1929). Finally, you'll find one of the masterpieces by painter Cecilio Guzmán de Rojas, founder of the La Paz School of Fine Arts, entitled El triunfo de la naturaleza (1928). The second room features the legendary Virgen del Cerro (1720), said to have been painted by an anonymous artist. It reveals the influence of Spanish-American Baroque and Spanish artistic techniques at the time of the conquest. It evokes Andean cosmovision, religiosity, the conquerors of the New World, and above all, the Cerro Rico represented by the Virgin Mary. The third and fourth rooms feature paintings by Joseph López de los Ríos and watercolours by Melchor María Mercado, depicting village customs in the Beni department of northern Bolivia. The next room is devoted to Andean women. Colorful paintings by Miguel Ángel Pantoja, María Luisa Pacheco, David Crespo Gastelú and Genaro Ibañez depict scenes from daily life, the market and the village. Finally, the fifth room features reproductions by Miguel Alandia Pantoja, Walter Solón Romero and, on the more contemporary side, works by Raúl Lara, Gíldaro Antezana, Mario Conde and the famous Mamani Mamani. In 2024, a permanent exhibition was added, dedicated to women's art, feminism and the fight against feminicide and violence against women in Bolivia.