Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía

The Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, located in Madrid, is Spain’s national museum dedicated to 20th-century art. It houses over 23,000 works, including Picasso’s ‘Guernica’, Dalí’s ‘Autumnal Landscape’, and Miró’s ‘The Tilled Field’. The museum offers guided tours and educational programs to enhance visitor experience.

Planning your visit

The Reina Sofía is where Spain's twentieth century is told, and one painting dominates the visit: Picasso's Guernica, shown in a room of its own with the preparatory sketches that led to it. Beyond it, the collection runs to over 23,000 works including Dalí and Miró, housed in a converted eighteenth-century hospital with Jean Nouvel's glass extension. Most visitors come for Guernica and stay longer than planned once the surrounding surrealist and modernist galleries pull them in.

Guided formats are common here because the political history behind the collection — the Civil War, exile, the return of Guernica to Spain in 1981 — isn't obvious from the works alone. Bookable options include small-group and private guided tours, skip-the-line entry with a guide, and entrance tickets for independent visits. Picasso-focused tours concentrate on Guernica specifically, and there are themed tours on the women artists in the collection. Combination options pair the Reina Sofía with the Prado for a single art-focused day in Madrid. See current dates below.