A museum's permanent collection is like its nerve centre, out of which all other messages emanate. The Museo Reina Sofía's Collection has been developing since 1894 and the foundation of the Spanish Museum of Contemporary Art, bringing together, almost a century later, all the state's various collections of modern and contemporary art.

The Museo's Collection now comprises almost 25,000 pieces and spans the last decades of the 19th century through to the present day. The principal focus is the history of Spanish art but there is international work too, with a particular emphasis on Latin America.