From 26 June, in the National Museum of Contemporary Art – Museu do Chiado (MNAC), the exhibition A Brasileira do Chiado. Café Museu 1925-1971 will be open to visitors. Curated by Maria Aires Silveira and Raquel Henriques da Silva, the exhibition marks the 50th anniversary of the commission, realisation and exhibition of the group of works that were part of the second decoration of the famous ‘A Brasileira’ café in the Chiado area of Lisbon (1971).

This was carried out in 1971 at the initiative of decorator Joachim Mitnitzky who sought to evoke the previous decoration project for the café, from 1925, when various modernist paintings were commissioned to José de Almada Negreiros, Eduardo Viana, Jorge Barradas, António Soares, Bernardo Marques and José Pacheko to be displayed in ‘A Brasileira.’

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These original paintings were removed in the late 1960s, joining several collections like Jorge de Brito’s, who later donated to the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation two paintings by Almada Negreiros, now on loan at this exhibition, which comprised the first and third decorative panels of the western section: As banhistas [The bathers] and Auto-retrato num grupo [Self-portrait in a group]. In the latter, Almada portrays himself sitting at a table in the café itself.

In addition to these works, there will also be a display of documents, some of which have never been exhibited before, including photographs taken by José Luís Madeira at the time of the mounting of the paintings on the café walls on the evening of 26 June 1971. The exhibition can be visited until 26 September on floor 0 of the MNAC.