Norlinda and José Lima Collection of Modern and Contemporary Art

The Norlinda and José Lima Collection is one of the largest private art collections in Portugal. It includes around one thousand two hundred artworks by two hundred and fifty Portuguese artists and two hundred and thirty international artists. Started by the collectors in 1980, this project is unusually consistent in the Portuguese context. The collection spans a period of almost a century, from 1926 to 2019, with a major focus on the artistic production of the last forty years. This unusual chronological span is coupled with disciplinary diversity, as well as media and process variety: painting, sculpture, drawing, photography, installation, film and video. The geographic diversity of the artists is also remarkable: Portugal and Spain are extensively represented in the collection; there are artists from historical artistic centres, such as Germany and the US, but also from Latin America, Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe, including both emerging and renowned artists. The inclusion of several artworks by the same artist or collective, as well as from the same period, is meant to form authorial, thematic and formal nuclei that bring coherence to (and ensure the development of) the collection, a feature that is usually more apparent in institutional rather private collections. The collection is on long term loan at São João da Madeira Municipal Council since 2009, having led to the foundation of Oliva Art Centre, which has been presenting a regular programme of temporary exhibitions since its opening in 2013.