From the historic colorful tiles that adorn many buildings inside and out, to the large-scale works from internationally known street artists that cover full facades, art is a driving force in the life of Lisbon. While the big museums and monuments give more attention, small galleries across the city showcase the work of established and up-and-coming Portuguese and international artists—without the time commitment of a large museum exhibition or collection. Here are nine serious galleries to pop into for an art fix.
Galeria São Mamede
This historic gallery in the heart of Principe Real was founded in the 1960s, making it one of Portugal’s first spaces for art and now a local landmark. Over the decades, São Mamede has exhibited works from many of the country’s most important artists, including famed Portuguese abstract artist Maria Helena Vieira da Silva, Portuguese-British visual artist Paula Rego, and geometric abstract painter Nadir Afonso. Now its ancient brick archways and stone floors form a showcase for today’s contemporary artists and young talents. In 2018, it annexed an additional exhibition space, just 30 meters from the main gallery, which spotlights modern and contemporary works.
R. Escola Politécnica, 167 | website
Tuesday to Friday – 11:00 to 20:00, Saturday – 11:00 to 19:00
Galeria Vera Cortês
Curator Vera Cortês founded her namesake gallery in 2006 as a continuation of her work as an agent dedicated to the development of specific projects by emerging artists. The gallery, which is housed in a warehouse in the off the beaten path neighborhood of Avalade, uses its space to create more opportunities to establish long-term collaborations with today’s generation of contemporary artists. The roster includes heavy-hitters like Alexendre Farto (aka Vhils), a street artist who works with chisels and explosives and has been called the Portuguese Banksy; internationally exhibited sculptor André Romão; and widely collected painter Susanne S,D. Themlitz. Cortês also exhibits frequently at high-powered international art fairs, such as Frieze London and ARCOMadrid.
Rua João Saraiva 16, First Floor | website
Tuesday to Friday – 14:00 to 19:00, Saturday – 10:00 to 13:00, 14:00 to 19:00
Galeria Bessa Pereira
A highlight on Lisbon’s antiques row on Rua São Bento, Galeria Bessa Pereira is a commercial gallery with a mission to provide its customers with works of art they can live with. Rather than pigeonholing themselves in a particular era or medium, the curators aim to break epochal and stylistic barriers—beauty and emotion are their most important criteria. As a result, the collection runs the gamut from Roman archaeology to modernist design, with equal emphasis on fine arts, decorative arts, design, and objects.
Rua de São Bento 426 | website
Monday to Saturday – 10:00 to 13:00, 14:30 to 19:00
Underdogs
Although Underdogs is now one of Lisbon’s most important cultural institutions for urban art, it was really was something of an underdog when it opened in the nearly abandoned warehouse district of Marvila (now the city’s epicenter of hipster cool) in 2010. The white-cube gallery displays art from some of Portugal’s most important urban artists, including Vhils, AddFuel (Diogo Machado), Tamara Alves, and ±MaisMenos±, whose most recent exhibition required 3D glasses. But Underdogs’ imprint is seen all over Lisbon, as it has formed a partnership with the city to turn building facades into large-scale artworks by some of the artists above and international players like Shepard Fairey. (A handy map on the website shows where to find them.) Of special note is the gallery’s transformation of the disused Panorâmico in the Monsanto forest during an edition of its urban art and music festival Iminente, which includes a gorgeous stained-glass window by AKA Corleone (Pedro Campiche).
Rua Fernando Palha, Amarzém 56 | website
Tuesday to Saturday – 14:00 to 19:00
Brisa Galeria
Brazilian couple Bebel Moraes and Daniel Mattar opened Brisa Galeria to explore and present the various possibilities of contemporary photography. To that end, the stable of artists includes the haunting forest landscapes of Cássio Vasconcellos, explorations of space and shade by Milton Montenegro, and subtle plays of color and light by Giovanna Nucci. Another thing that keeps the space, in a Pombaline building in the historic Chiado neighborhood, interesting is the fact that guest curators put together each exhibition, leading to an ever-changing array of art experiences designed for a new audience of collectors and art lovers. Recent exhibitions were themed around the intersection of painting and art, Buddhist philosophy, and the poetry of Emily Dickinson.
Rua Vitor Cordon, 44 | website
Tuesday to Saturday – 11:00 to 19:00
Galeria Tapeçarias
This highly specific gallery is a change from Lisbon’s contemporary art scene. Galeria Tapeçarias de Portalegre is a public, educational space near Bairro Alto that serves as a showplace for the traditional textiles and tapestries from a manufacturing house in Portalegre, in the eastern Alentejo. Along with temporary exhibitions of specific artists within the genre, the gallery has a large collection of tapestries made by the manufacturer. This serves as a history lesson in the techniques and artistry of Portalegre weaving—in this case, a complex process that takes a known painting by a Portuguese or foreign artist as its starting point, and then involves hand-weaving on vertical looms with a very high density of wool threads.
Rua Academia das Ciências, 2J | website | See our story
Tuesdays and Thursdays – 14:00 to 19:30, or by appointment
Galeria Francisco Fino
Curator Francisco Fino began presenting exhibitions a decade ago in different cultural spaces—both museums and commercial enterprises—around Lisbon. The nomadic format fit with the dynamic ideas of contemporary art at that time. He called it a “nonstop platform of presentation, diffusion, and promotion” of national and international art. Although he settled into a fixed location, in art-forward Marvila, in 2017, he maintained connections and partnerships with diverse institutions around the city. In his own white cube gallery, he presents conceptual group and solo shows with intriguing names like “We Loved Each Other for One Month” and “How Many Worlds Are We?” Nevertheless, the artworks are accessible, and the space is luminous and inviting.
Rua Capitão Leitão, 76 | website
Tuesday to Friday – 12:00 to 19:00, Saturday – 14:00 to 19:00
Marvilla Art District
While it seems that all of Marvila has recently become an art district, the official Marvilla Art District (MAD for short, with an extra L for differentiation) is a particular site in a gorgeous old palace. It combines displays of completed artworks with live art galleries and artists’ studios. Just as it aims to break the stereotypes of museums, cultural centers, and white cube galleries, it also has a mission to bring young local and international artists to the forefront, and to give them work, exhibition, and social spaces. It’s part of an ambitious mixed-use development that combines art and public spaces with luxury waterfront residences.
Rua Fernando Palha 1 | website
Monday to Saturday – 14:00 to 19:00
