Top photo: Marcelo Martins
Hosted in a beautiful neoclassical mansion from the early 20th century, the Benedicto Calixto Art Gallery is an important cultural space in the city, offering musical happy hours, courses, and various events for children and adults, especially on weekends.
The house, the last on the Santos coastline that retains the characteristics of the era of the coffee barons, served as a family residence, a retirement home, a boarding house for young women, and even a tenement, before being declared a public utility in 1979 and beginning its restoration seven years later.
On the ground floor are an art library and a permanent exhibition of works by Calixto, considered one of the greatest exponents of Brazilian painting from the early 20th century. The upper floor functions as a gallery for temporary exhibitions.