Museo de Arte de El Salvador

MARTE opened in 2003 in a purpose-built gallery in San Benito and holds the principal collection of Salvadoran art: the nineteenth-century academic painters, the twentieth-century modernists including Jose Mejia Vides, Camilo Minero and Carlos Canas, the folk-influenced work of Fernando Llort whose style became a national visual shorthand, and contemporary artists. The permanent display traces how Salvadoran painting handled landscape, indigenous subjects, social conditions and abstraction, and temporary exhibitions run alongside. The Monumento a la Revolucion, a large mosaic figure from 1955, stands on the hill immediately above the museum. It sits next to the anthropology museum.

History

The Association of the Salvadoran Museum of Art was set up in 2000, with Eli Lecha de Lindo, granddaughter of the painter Valero Lecha, as its first president, and its members worked with Mexico's Conaculta on a plan for the museum. MARTE opened on 22 May 2003 in a purpose-built building designed by the architect Salvador Choussy, which cost US$1.8 million and covers 2,274 square metres. It now receives more than half a million visitors a year, and for its 20th anniversary it mounted an exhibition of the work of 54 Salvadoran artists from 1800 to 2023 (Wikipedia, Salvadoran Museum of Art).

Highlights

• The permanent collection - Salvadoran painting from the nineteenth century on.
• Twentieth-century modernists - Mejia Vides, Minero, Canas and their contemporaries.
• Fernando Llort - the folk-derived style that became a national idiom.
• The revolution monument - the 1955 mosaic figure on the hill above.

When to go

Year round; the museum is indoors. It closes on Mondays and opens late morning. Check the temporary exhibition programme, which is often the reason to visit. Weekday afternoons are quiet.

Good to know

Labelling is mostly in Spanish. The permanent collection is modest in size. Some galleries close between temporary shows. The museum area is a distance from the historic centre and needs a taxi.

Nearby

The anthropology museum is next door; the Divino Salvador monument is east.

Key facts