Argentina's national fine arts museum, housed in a 19th-century building in Recoleta, holds the largest collection of Western art in South America — approximately 12,000 works spanning the 11th century to the present. The collection is strongest in European late-19th and early-20th-century painting (Monet, Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec, Van Gogh, Renoir), and in Argentine art from the same period.
The Argentine galleries are the most distinctive section — works by artists such as Cándido López (who painted the War of the Triple Alliance battles from memory after losing his right hand), Antonio Berni, and Xul Solar offer a perspective on Argentine art history that is hard to get elsewhere. Free entry, which in a country that has struggled economically for decades is a genuine public service.