The Museu de Fotografia da Madeira – Atelier Vicente’s is based on a nineteenth-century family-owned photographic studio, one of the only two still in existence in Portugal. The Museum displays the original Studio, with all its apparatus and with some insights on the history of photography. The exhibition also comprehends “From the studio to Fajã – portrait and landscape in Madeiran photography” and a multimedia room.
The Museum currently displays the exhibition “João Pestana – retrospective of his photographic work”, which illustrates the trajectory of this well-known Madeiran photographer. Pestana has left a remarkable and rich pictorial collection composed by artistic productions, press photographs and a series of illustrations. His depictions of the daily life of the island in the 1960s are a crucial ethnographic resource.
On December 10, 2020, the Associação Portuguesa de Museologia ( a Portuguese Association of Museology) granted the Museu de Fotografia da Madeira – Atelier Vicente’s with the award “Museum of the Year 2020”. The glass trophy, created by the Portuguese artist Fernando Quintas, is on display in the museum shop, where it will remain until the next edition of the APOM awards.
