The Museum of Fine Arts includes two buildings of collections: Palacio de Bellas Artes, dedicated to Cuban Arts, and Palacio del Centro Asturiano, dedicated to Universal Arts.
The Cuban Arts building contains galleries spanning the 17th century to the present, with rooms dedicated to religion, landscape, and costumbrismo scenes of everyday life. Beginning in the 1970s, Cuban art transitioned to hyperrealism--that is, a painting or sculpture resembling a high-resolution photograph. Artists featured in this building include Rene Portocarrero, Rita Lonja, Wilfredo Lam, Leopoldo Romanach, Federico Beltran Masses, Victor Manuel, Jose A. Bencomo Mena, Rafael Lillo, Manuel Vega, Guillermo Collazo, Domingo Ramos, Mariano Rodriquez, Jorge Arche, and Carlos Enrequez Gomez.
The building housing Universal Art is a work of art itself, with its great staircase, wall-size mural, and eclectic 1927 Spanish Renaissance-style architecture. More than 1,000 tons of marble were used to construct the building, and the woodwork was crafted using Cuban cedar and mahogany. Ancient art from Spain, France, Great Britain, Holland, Italy, Flanders, Asia, Germany, Latin America, and the United States are all featured in this building, as well as pieces dating back to ancient Egyptian, Greek, and Roman times. There are more than 700 pieces in the Spanish collection, making it one of the richest collections in the world. Hoping to step into some of Cuba's finest art collections? Join us on our Cuba kayaking tour or our Havana weekend escape tour and experience history.