Lima Art Museum
The Lima Art Museum (Museo de Arte de Lima, MALI) is an art museum in Lima, Peru. The museum is located in the Palacio de la Exposición. The museum was inaugurated in 1961.
Also recorded as MALI · Museo de Arte de Lima
Lima Art Museum

UE en Perú · CC BY 2.0
- Founded
- 1959.
- Headquarters
- Lima.
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Documentary summary
The Lima Art Museum (Museo de Arte de Lima, MALI) is an art museum in Lima, Peru. The museum is located in the Palacio de la Exposición. The museum was inaugurated in 1961.
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wikipedia incomplete · checked 25 September 2026
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Authority files
wikidata · Q6033913 · wikipedia · Lima Art Museum
In this article
History
History
The collection includes ceramics, textiles, sculptures, and paintings spanning almost 3,000 years of history, from the pre-Columbian to Contemporary periods. MALI is a private organization supported by admission fees, contributions from members, and private donations. In 2015, the museum opened its renovated galleries on the second floor of the Exhibition Palace, showcasing some of the collection's most important items. The museum's contemporary art collection, numbering more than 1,000 works, remains largely in storage pending the development of a new wing. The museum has supported new research on Peruvian art history and houses one of the region's most extensive art archives. MALI runs an active program of temporary exhibitions throughout the year, featuring local and international artists. Past exhibitions have included Gordon Matta Clark, Milagros de la Torre, Martin Creed, Gerhard Richter, Wolfgang Tilmans, Martin Chambi, Annie and Josef Albers, Francis Alÿs, Fernando Bryce, Marcel Odenbach, Jorge Eduardo Eielson, among others. In 2018, the museum showed "El Perú ilustrado. Martínez Compañón y su legado", showing the watercolors of the Codex Martínez Compañón with later illustrated works on Peru, among them Antigüedades peruanas (1851).
The MALI is housed in the 1872 World's Fair Exhibition Palace in Exposition Park, at the entrance to Lima's historic center. Antonio Leonardi, an Italian architect living in Lima at the time, designed the Italianate façade that wraps the building's structure–a cast-iron system designed by Gustave Eiffel's atelier between 1870 and 1871. Leonardi, together with journalist Manuel Atanasio Fuentes, also designed the park, located on the former site of the Guadalupe Gate (one of ten gates along the city wall, torn down during the modernization campaigns of José Balta's presidency in 1868). Besides the Exhibition Palace, the park eventually housed numerous structures, including the Moorish and Byzantine pavilions (built in 1921 to commemorate Peru's centennial of independence).
Manuel Solari Swayne Library
Manuel Solari Swayne Library
Manuel Solari Swayne Library and the Peruvian Art Archive, part of MALI's documentation area, constitute the main art library in Peru.
Institutional history
Dated record
Institutional history
Explore 1959
The full dated record · 3 entries
1959
Lima Art Museum established.
1959
Lima Art Museum is recorded from 1959.
1959
Lima Art Museum was established or created in 1959.
Digital archive
Digital archive
ARCHI, the Digital Archive of Peruvian Art, is a platform dedicated to documenting and sharing a range of Peruvian art expressions, material culture, and architecture in the most complete and representative way, contributing to their preservation and accessibility. ARCHI includes free educational resources to complement school teaching and learning processes.
Documents and archives
Primary material
Documents and archives
reference work
- “Lima Art Museum”, English Wikipedia, consulted as further reading
Reputable secondary · Wikipedia
authority record
- Wikidata, structured authority record Q6033913: Lima Art Museum
Unverified · Wikidata
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.Lonely Planet. Museo de Arte de Lima.
- 2.Museo de Arte de Lima. Brochure.
- 3.Museo de Arte de Lima. The museum.
- 4.Museo de Arte de Lima. Misión.
- 5.Planas, Enrique. 'El Perú ilustrado': el retrato dibujado de un país en el MALI. El Comercio. 31 August 2018.
- 6.Museo de Arte de Lima. Guía MALI. 7–8. 2015. 978-9972-718-46-5.
- 7.Museo de Arte de Lima. Biblioteca y Archivo.
- 8.ARCHI. Archivo Digital de Arte Peruano.
References
Citations
References
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