Galería Nacional de Arte, Art museum in Tegucigalpa, Honduras.
The Galería Nacional de Arte is Honduras's national art museum, run by the Fundarte foundation and holding the country's artistic heritage. Its rooms are organised by type: a sculpture hall, the Maestro Ruiz Matute hall, a hall of silver coins, a portrait hall and temporary exhibition rooms, plus a pinacoteca where paintings are kept when not on display.
The Galería Nacional de Arte opened on 31 July 1996, created by the Fundación Pro Arte y Cultura (Fundarte) with support from Rodolfo Pastor Fasquelle and collector Yvonne Saint-Sigens. Its headquarters moved in June 2013 to the Caxa Real in Comayagua, a colonial building raised between 1739 and 1741 by Baltazar Maradiaga, damaged by an earthquake in 1809 and by a fire in 1840. That Comayagua seat closed in March 2015, and a new space opened in San Pedro Sula on 16 July 2015.
The gallery's halls are named for their contents: a sculpture room, the Maestro Ruiz Matute room honouring the painter born in 1928, a room of silver coins, a portrait room and temporary exhibition rooms. A pinacoteca stores paintings while they are not on display. In 2013 the museum received 20,000 visits, 5,000 of them sponsored for children from low-income families.
The gallery's halls are organised by theme: sculpture, the Maestro Ruiz Matute room, a silver coin display, portraiture and temporary exhibitions, with a pinacoteca storing paintings not on view. Visits by schoolchildren from low-income families are sponsored through Fundarte, and in 2013 the halls received 20,000 visitors, 5,000 of them sponsored.
The Comayagua branch occupied the Caxa Real, built between 1739 and 1741 by Baltazar Maradiaga, whose main entrance carries a long carved lintel naming King Philip V, his wife Isabella Farnese and governor Pedro de Rivera Villalón. An 1809 earthquake damaged it and an 1840 fire destroyed much of it before its 2013 restoration as a museum; that branch closed in March 2015.
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