National Gallery - Alexandros Soutsos Museum, Art museum in Central Athens, Greece.
The National Gallery - Alexandros Soutsos Museum is an art museum in central Athens that holds a large collection of paintings, sculptures, and photographs ranging from post-Byzantine works to contemporary art. The main building sits near the Hilton hotel and spreads across several floors of exhibition halls.
The museum was founded in 1896 after Alexandros Soutsos, a wealthy Greek citizen, left his entire fortune to create a national art institution. Over time, the collection grew through donations and state purchases, making it one of the main art museums in Greece.
The collection puts Greek painters of the 19th and 20th centuries at the center, letting visitors see how local artists absorbed and reshaped European styles. Works by El Greco, born in Crete and active in Spain, are also present, showing the close ties between Greek and western European art.
The museum is generally open Thursday through Monday, with longer hours on Wednesdays into the evening. It is worth setting aside enough time for a visit, as the collection covers several floors and can take a few hours to explore properly.
The museum runs several branches across Greece, including one focused on sculpture and another on contemporary art, so a visit to the Athens building covers only part of the full collection. Travelers curious about the rest can find these other sites in different parts of the country.
The community of curious travelers
AroundUs brings together thousands of curated places, local tips, and hidden gems, enriched daily by 60,000 contributors worldwide.
