Arpad Szenes – Vieira da Silva Museum
In Amoreiras, in a former silk factory, the paintings and drawings of Vieira da Silva and Arpad Szenes.
Arpad Szenes – Vieira da Silva Foundation – former Silk Factory
On Praça das Amoreiras, the museum devoted to Maria Helena Vieira da Silva and her husband, the Budapest-born painter Arpad Szenes, grew out of an idea of the artist herself, conceived shortly after Arpad's death in 1985. The original plan for a study centre in her house on Alto de São Francisco gave way, at the suggestion of Guy Weelen and José Sommer Ribeiro, to a museum, and the Foundation was established by Decree-Law 149/90, with the participation of the State, Lisbon City Council, the Luso-American Development Foundation and the Fundação Cidade de Lisboa. The painter chose the building of the former Silk Factory, a Pombaline house joined to an early twentieth-century industrial warehouse, adapted by the architects José Sommer Ribeiro and Richard Clarke with minimal changes, creating a sober, almost monastic atmosphere; the pavement at the entrance reproduces a design by Vieira da Silva. The artist followed the project until her death in 1992, and the museum opened on 4 November 1994, honouring her condition that Arpad's name should precede her own. The collection brings together paintings and drawings by both artists, shown in exhibition cycles, and the Foundation also includes a documentation and research centre, an auditorium and the Casa-Atelier on Alto de São Francisco.
Located at: Fundação Arpad Szenes – Vieira da Silva
Address: Praça das Amoreiras, 56, 1250-020 Lisboa
Opening hours: Tuesday to Sunday 10:00-18:00 (closed on Mondays and public holidays)
Phone: +351 213 880 044
Coordinates: 38.7220339, -9.1556681
Buses: 713, 774, 758, 65B, 706, 709, 727, 19B, 720, 738
Tram: 24E
Metro: Rato (Yellow), Marquês de Pombal (Yellow, Blue)
Opened: 1994 (32 years)
