The exhibition Family Album brings together works from the Carmona e Costa Foundation Collection, Portugal's largest private collection, which will be presented to the public and critics for the first time.
Maria da Graça Carmona e Costa, currently the most important private patron in the country, has amassed her collection over the last 50 years, but it has never been systematically displayed. Made up of solid authorial sections that cover the decades of activity of the two institutions she created (the Giefarte gallery and the Carmona e Costa Foundation itself), Family Album – Works from the Carmona e Costa Foundation's Collection reflects not only her personal taste, but also a significant part of the history of Portuguese art in recent decades, explaining the way in which Maria da Graça Carmona e Costa intervened in it by promoting exhibitions or acquisitions. Her initiatives surround, nourish and largely explain the collection, with a permanent and continuous fusion between the collection and the foundation's activities and between these and the life and tastes of her mentor.
The collection is presented at MAAT (Central building) and, in two instalments, at the headquarters of the Carmona e Costa Foundation. There are therefore three moments to consider: none exhausts or summarises the collection and none fully covers the diversity of the works and names that make it up.