Museum Arpad Szenes - Vieira da Silva

The Museum Arpad Szenes - Vieira da Silva is located in the old Real Fábrica dos Tecidos, built in the 18^th century. The beginning of the museum's history happened in the year 1930, when the Hungarian painter Arpad Szenes and the Portuguese painter Maria Helena Vieira da Silva married and sealed a destiny of artistic and personal life together.

During the Second World War and for having legal problems, the couple left Portugal towards Brazil and there lived for many years.

In 1985, after her husband's death, Vieira da Silva expresses the wish of having a space to pay tribute to the work of hers and Arpad Szenes. In 1988 they started the procedures for creating the Fundação Arpad Szenes-Vieira da Silva which was completed two years later. The painter would never see her wish come true by dyeing in 1992.

Finally, the Museum Arpad Szenes - Vieira da Silva opens to the public on the November 3^rd of 1994 as a posthumous homage to the remarkable work done in life by the artist couple.

In this museum space, there are in exhibition paintings and prints produced by both artists between 1911 and 1986. Also noteworthy are a group of personal photographs and Vieira da Silva's prints designed one and two years before her disappearance.

Set up in the premises of what was formerly the Real Fábrica dos Tecidos de Seda, an 18th century building, the Fundação Arpad Szenes – Vieira da Silva was inaugurated in November 1994 and houses a Museum and a Documentation and Research Centre. Having as main purpose the diffusion and study of those artists' work, the permanent exhibition covers a vast period of the two painters production. On a regular basis, exhibitions of artists who were familiar with Szenes and Vieira da Silva or shared artistic affinities with them take place here.