The first public re-presentation of the Modern Collection in 2018 opens with new proposals in three areas of sculpture, with film and the updating of a group of publications and artist’s books.

On the ground floor, the hall and the nave host the almost ephemeral installation by artist Ana Vieira (1940–2016), Ocultação/Desocultação [Concealment/Disconcealment], a work for two spaces conceived and presented for the first time in 1978 at the Galeria Quadrum in Lisbon. Acquired in 2017, the Ocultação/Desocultaçãoproject reinforces this artist’s representation in the Modern Collection.

The section dedicated to sculpture and statues of the Estado Novo, produced mostly between 1920 and 1940, though with some examples from the 1950s and 1960s, is reinforced with a collection of works from the Centro de Artes – Município das Caldas da Rainha. Works are presented by sculptors Barata Feyo, Leopoldo de Almeida and António Duarte, including bas-reliefs, models and definitive models in plaster, realised mainly in the context of public commissions. Specific examples include Nossa Senhora de Fátima [Our Lady of Fatima] (1938) by Leopoldo de Almeida, produced for the Nossa Senhora de Fátima Church in Lisbon; Cabeça de Cavalo Marinho [Seahorse Head] ( 1940) by António Duarte produced for the Praça do Império in Lisbon; and Figura Decorativa [Decorative Figure] (1954) by Barata Feyo produced in the context of the competition for the Monument in Praça D. João I in Porto. 

The sections of works dedicated to the first decade of the 21st century is also renewed with the inclusion of six new acquisitions made in 2017, including works by artists Ana Jotta, Carlos Bunga, Claire de Santa Coloma, Diogo Pimentão and Nuno Sousa Vieira, and a work by Maria José Oliveira of more historical character (from the 1980s) exhibited in proximity to other works from the same period. Works by Lourdes de Castro, Emília Nadal, Fernando Calhau and Francisco Tropa complete this new presentation of the collection, in a temporal arc that reaches from 1962 to 2005. In the section dedicated to 21st century film, the Memórias da Guerra [Memories of War] cycle, which has been presented since the beginning of the year in the second entry room, is now replaced by the O Mundo da Arte [The World of Art] series, with works by Bruno Pacheco, Rui Calçada Bastos and Gabriel Abrantes.                                                                                                          

On the lower floor, some magazines from the early 20th century are displayed, including some ephemeral publications such as Sphinx (directed by Cottineli Telmo), Exilio and Folhas de Arte (directed by Augusto de Santa-Rita), and the first and subsequent editions of the work of Raul Lino A nossa casa: apontamentos sobre o bom gosto na construção das casas simples(Our house: notes on good taste in the construction of simple houses). There is now a more significant representation of the visual poetry movement of the 1960s, with the magazine Hidra (directed by Ernesto de Melo e Castro), the 2.º Caderno antológico da Poesia Experimental [2nd Anthology of Experimental Poetry] and the catalogue Visopoemas. Finally, a new selection of artist’s books is also shown, with works by Susana Mendes Silva and Alice Geirinhas, Carla Filipe, Susanne Themlitz and António Júlio Duarte, among others.