The work ‘Auto-Retrato num grupo (pintura para o café ‘A Brasileira’ do Chiado, Lisboa)‘, from 1925, was originally created for the new decoration of the emblematic café ‘A Brasileira’ in Chiado, Lisbon, which had been commissioned to the modernists Eduardo Viana, António Soares, Jorge Barradas, Stuart Carvalhais, Bernardo Marques, José Pacheko and José de Almada Negreiros. Along with ‘As Banhistas’, this would be one of the two panels the artist created for that space.     

Some of the works created for ‘A Brasileira’, and this one in particular, had been displayed at the First Autumn Salon in January 1925. Although poorly received by most of the critics and by the patrons of the café, the new paintings turned that space into the only modernist ‘gallery’ then possible in the Portuguese capital.

The work, now on display in a room adjacent to the one where Picasso’s famous Guernica is exhibited, will remain at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía until 31 December.