Provincial Palace

The Archaeology Museum opened on March 25, 2009. Essentially educational, it presents evidence of the material culture of immemorial human groups who lived in the area, along with banners with texts and photos explaining "archaeological activity" in the field. Visitors are introduced to some of the techniques used in an excavation and get to see how cultural evidence of extinct peoples is found by archaeologists, as well as some of the equipment used by them in the field.[1]

Evidence of archaeological material culture from archaeological sites in the state of Amazonas can also be found. The main objective is to show the visiting public a little of the pre-colonial knowledge, from an anthropological and artistic perspective, of the peoples who lived in the region and bequeathed the most diverse forms of cultural expression. The exhibition includes the Anthropozoormorphic Statuette, given to the Museum by the Historic and Geographic Institute of Amazonas (IGHA).[1]

Inaugurated on November 6, 2000, its collections are composed of donations from several organizations and collectors, as well as direct acquisitions from the State Department of Culture, which keeps institutional documents produced by the agency itself. The museum houses material relating to cinema, photography, music, television, radio and other types of visual arts technology.[7][8]

It includes more than 17,000 items from Bernardo de Azevedo da Silva Ramos' personal collection, including coins, banknotes, medals and national and international decorations.[9]

Heliodoro Balbi Square, better known as Police Square.

The Provincial Palace and the Police Square.

It presents the history of the Amazonas Military Police, with original furniture from the time, as well as an integrated archive with individual notebooks of members of the organization, along with weapons, uniforms, armor from the 16th century and equipment used by the State Fire Department. In the "Flagrant of History" exhibition, visitors will be able to watch videos of festive events and hear the sound of some weapons.[10][11]

It was organized and inaugurated in 1984 on the initiative of the then commander-in-chief of the Amazonas Military Police, Colonel Elcio Motta, under the technical guidance of the Joaquim Nabuco Foundation. Its first headquarters were in a room on the first floor of the General Command of the Military Police in Heliodoro Balbi Square, in Manaus; in 2009, the museum was reinstalled in the Provincial Palace. It represents an important part of the history of the state of Amazonas and the corporation to which it belongs, preserving and providing society with the entity's historical collection, which consists of dozens of objects, such as: old weapons, Fire Department equipment, uniforms, badges and decorations, documents, photographs and more.[9][11]

The Pinacoteca do Estado do Amazonas is a state public institution, subordinate to the Amazonas Secretariat of Culture. It was officially established on July 18, 1965, during the government of Artur César Ferreira Reis, as the result of an initiative that had been nurtured since the 1950s by a group of intellectuals linked to the Clube da Madrugada, specifically Moacir de Andrade. In the following decades, it stood out for its didactic work in the formation of a whole generation of contemporary artists of regional expression.[12]

The Pinacoteca has a collection of more than a thousand pieces of different techniques that cover Brazilian artistic production between the 19th and 20th centuries, with a special focus on artists from Amazonas. It also keeps a teaching collection of copies of famous works of universal art, promotes permanent and temporary exhibitions and organizes several cultural events.[12]

Panorama of the Provincial Palace.

The Pinacoteca preserves a collection of approximately 1,000 works, including paintings, sculptures, drawings and engravings, created by around 300 artists from Amazonas, Brazil and abroad. The collection offers a panorama of Brazilian artistic production between the 19th and 20th centuries, illustrated especially by works from regional artists.[5][12]

19th century academism and the transition phase from the 19th to the 20th century is represented by works by painters who were very significant for Brazilian art. The canvas O último baile da Ilha Fiscal, by Aurélio de Figueiredo, a preliminary version of the work of the same name preserved in the National Historical Museum in Rio de Janeiro, is noteworthy. O banho de Ceci, also by Figueiredo, is an example of Indianism. The collection includes some of the most famous historical paintings by Joaquim Fernandes Machado, such as A Glória coroando Gonçalves Dias and Primeiro voo de Santos Dumont. By Antônio Parreiras, the museum preserves the oils Quarta-feira de cinzas and Caçador furtivo, probably acquired by the state government during the artist's exhibition at the Rio Negro Palace in 1905. There are also works by Eliseu Visconti, Sólon Botelho and Darkir Parreiras, among others.[13]

Modernism is represented by a group of works by Alfredo Volpi, Cícero Dias, Inimá de Paula, Aldemir Martins and Burle Marx, as well as the oil Curupira, by Manoel Santiago, from Amazonas, representative of the nationalist painting of the 1930s. The works of Oscar Ramos, Álvaro Páscoa, Anísio Mello and Hahnemann Bacelar exemplify the assimilation of the legacy of the Modern Art Week in Manaus in the 50s and 60s. Among the representatives of naïve art, Francisco da Silva from Acre and Rita Loureiro from Manaus deserve a mention. Anna Letycia Quadros, Dirso José de Oliveira and Roberto De Lamonica also stand out.[13]

In the contemporary art segment, there are works by artists of national expression (Adhemar Guerra, Acácio Sobral, Antônio Dias, Emmanuel Nassar, Dora Basílio, etc.) and regional expression (Afrânio de Araújo Castro, Eli Bacelar da Silva, Jefferson Rebelo, Sebastião Alves, Cristóvão Coutinho, Oscar Ramos, Claudson Mota de Ouro, Manoel Borges, etc.).[13]

The Pinacoteca do Estado also has a teaching collection of copies of famous works of universal art. There are 70 paintings and 20 sculptures, currently on display at the Casa da Cultura on Instalação Street, which cover various periods and important authors in the history of art.

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  Building of the Amazonas Public Library, first headquarters of the Pinacoteca do Estado.
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  Antônio Parreiras - Quarta-feira de cinzas (1904). Collection of the Pinacoteca do Amazonas.
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  Aurélio de Figueiredo - O último baile da Ilha Fiscal (1905). Collection of the Pinacoteca do Amazonas.
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  Joaquim Fernandes Machado - O primeiro voo de Santos Dumont (c. 1906). Collection of the Pinacoteca do Amazonas.