ABC Museum

The ABC Museum opened its doors in 2010 in this building in the Conde Duque neighbourhood, which was designed by José López Salaberry, which housed the first Cerveza Mahou brewery. The museum houses the ABC Collection, one of the largest illustration collections in the world, declared a Site of Cultural Interest. Since 2023, the museum has shared the building with the Clara del Rey Municipal Cultural Centre, with both institutions working together on joint projects to promote the dissemination of art and illustration. 

The building’s 3,700 m2 are divided into five floors, two lower floors, which are home to the ABC Museum’s exhibition halls, and 3 upper floors belonging to the Clara del Rey Cultural Centre, which boasts different spaces for classrooms and workshops, a gym, multi-purpose rooms, a spacious auditorium and an area for conferences. After being closed for several years for refurbishment, the museum reopened its doors in March 2024 to once more display the wealth of its collections, consisting of 150,000 works by 500 artists and a programme of temporary exhibitions.

ABC Collection

The ABC Collection started to be managed in 1891 thanks to Torcuato Luca de Tena, founder and editor of the Blanco y Negro magazine, who sought to create an archive with the graphic material that was published in the magazine that would later become part of the Prensa Española publishing group. That first archive was gradually extended with photographs and illustrations from other publication that emerged subsequently, particularly the ABC newspaper, but also the different supplements that have accompanied the group’s main two publications for decades. 

Its value lies in the artistic quality of the works and the artists signing them, as well as the fact that it represents a unique documentary account of the development of the printed press in Spain and the graphic techniques that made it possible.