Construction of the property began in 1861 by the Portuguese merchant Alexandre Paulo de Brito Amorim to serve as a residence for his family, but he did not finalize the construction. The building was bought by Custódio Garcia, captain of the National Guard, and then sold to José Bernardo Michellis, president of the province. The work was completed on March 25, 1874, and, until 1875, the palace simultaneously housed several public offices: the Provincial Assembly, the Public Works Department, the
Public Library and the Liceu Provincial, now the Colégio Amazonense D. Pedro II. Between the end of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th century, the city of Manaus, like the other capitals of the
Amazon region, experienced a period of great prosperity driven by the
rubber cycle. This historical situation would have a great impact on the development of the city's artistic and cultural environment (the greatest symbol of which would be the construction of the luxurious
Amazon Theatre, inaugurated in 1896), stimulating the arrival of artists, photographers and architects from other parts of Brazil and other countries, especially
Italy, attracted by the job market. Painters such as
Crispim do Amaral,
Fernandes Machado,
Aurélio de Figueiredo and
Antônio Parreiras would spend long periods of time in the city executing a large number of works requested by wealthy families and public authorities. The incentive for artistic development was finally consolidated with the adoption of
art education in public schools (such as the Ginásio Amazonense, where
Manoel Santiago studied) and the foundation of the Academia Amazonense de Belas Artes. However, the growing competition from African and Asian
rubber plantations and the end of the
World War I led to the collapse of the rubber cycle, which resulted in the economic decline of Brazil's producing regions and, consequently, a reduction in artistic and cultural events in Manaus. Decades later, the city would once again witness some cultural movement through the activities of the
Clube da Madrugada. With an anarchic-libertarian ideology, the club was created by painters
Moacir Andrade, Afrânio de Castro, Oscar Ramos and Anísio Mello, and writers Antístenes Pinto, Alencar e Silva and
Jorge Tufic, with the aim of promoting a series of
avant-garde actions in the fields of visual arts and literature. In the field of visual arts, the Clube da Madrugada has organized the Madrugada Salons and Plastic Arts Fairs, as well as sponsoring individual and collective exhibitions by artists from Amazonas. In this context, the idea of creating a permanent museological space for the dissemination and preservation of the region's artistic heritage arose. Moacir de Andrade had been pursuing this project since the early 1950s and on several occasions expressed it to the historian
Artur César Ferreira Reis. In 1964, after the
military coup, Artur Reis was appointed by General
Castelo Branco as the new governor of Amazonas, replacing
Plínio Ramos Coelho. The following year, on July 18, 1965, he established the Pinacoteca do Estado do Amazonas by means of Law No. 233. Initially, the Pinacoteca was housed in a room in the right wing of the
Amazonas Public Library building, on Barroso Street, with a total collection of 90 works of art, including paintings, drawings, engravings and sculptures. Moacir de Andrade was the institution's first director, succeeded by Álvaro Páscoa, Afrânio de Castro and Helena Gentil. After it was founded, the institution hosted meetings of the Clube da Madrugada and became an important regional center for artistic training. The Pinacoteca organized workshops in drawing (Manoel Borges), painting (Moacir Andrade), art history and
woodcut (Álvaro Páscoa). Álvaro Páscoa's work as a teacher at the Pinacoteca is particularly noteworthy, since he was responsible for training a whole generation of contemporary artists, such as Hahnemann Bacelar, Enéas Valle, Zeca Nazaré, Van Pereira, Thyrso Muñoz and Jair Jacqmont; the latter became the institution's director in the 1990s. == Museums ==