São Paulo Museums: MASP, Pinacoteca & World-Class Art Collections

São Paulo is Brazil's cultural capital — a city with over 100 museums serving a population that treats art and culture with serious engagement. The Museu de Arte de São Paulo (MASP) on Avenida Paulista is the most important art museum in Latin America — its collection of 10,000 works includes Raphael, Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Renoir, and Picasso housed in a striking 1968 building by Lina Bo Bardi that 'floats' on red concrete pillars over a public plaza. The Pinacoteca do Estado, in a converted 1905 railway building in Luz, focuses on Brazilian art from the 19th century to the present and is one of the country's most beautiful museum spaces. The Museum of the Portuguese Language (Museu da Língua Portuguesa) explores how one of the world's most widely spoken languages evolved across five continents. Instituto Moreira Salles in Higienópolis is the most beautiful contemporary cultural space in the city. Museum-hopping along Avenida Paulista on a Tuesday (free entry day at MASP) is the ideal cultural introduction to the city.