The MNAC takes visitors on an uninterrupted journey through a thousand years of Catalan art, from the 10th to the 20th centuries, through its four permanent collections: Romanesque and Gothic art, Renaissance and Baroque art, Modern art, photography, drawings, prints and posters and the Catalan Numismatic Department and a gallery featuring work by Picasso.

Romanesque and Gothic art. The collection of Romanesque murals is a unique patrimony both in terms of the quantity and the quality of the Romanesque paintings from church apses, reconstructed in situ. The holdings of Gothic art illustrate the splendour and the peak of Catalan territorial expansion in Mediterranean Europe at the time.

Renaissance and Baroque art. The exhibitions of Renaissance and Baroque art include part of the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection and feature works by major international painters such as El Greco, Zurbarán, Velázquez and Rubens.

Modern art, photography, drawings, prints and posters and the Catalan Numismatic Department. The museum's collection showcasing art from the late 19th to the early 20th centuries, mainly comprising exhibitions of works by Catalan artists, covering all the artistic genres, including the Catalan Modernimst style (Art Nouveau) movements of modernisme and Noucentisme and the avant-garde.

A dedicated gallery featuring work by Picasso has opened, showcasing nine paintings which are representative of the painter's work.

The cultural supply of the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya is completed with a rich calendar of temporary exhibitions.