Helga de Alvear was a German-Spanish art collector and dealer of contemporary art. Living in Madrid from 1959, where she had personal contact to the art scene, she began to collect contemporary art by Spanish and international artists in 1967, over decades more than 3000 works by more than 500 artists. She opened her own gallery, Galería Helga de Alvear, in 1995. In 2006, she began to share her collection with the public in a foundation with the Government of Extremadura. A museum in a house in the historic district of Cáceres opened in 2010. A new annex expanding it was built from 2015 and opened in 2021. The museum, then called Museum of Contemporary Art Helga de Alvear, displays around 5% of her collection.