The 100 most popular art museums in the world—blockbusters, bots and bounce-backs

Yearly for the reason that Covid-19 pandemic pressured artwork museums all over the world to close their doorways, we’ve been asking the query: when will customer numbers get again to the place they have been earlier than? Or has the jolt of the lockdowns modified how museums function and who involves them?

This 12 months we will lastly reply: issues are again to regular. Principally.
Our survey reveals that in 2023 lots of the world’s largest museums recorded very related numbers to these of 2019, the final full 12 months earlier than the Covid lockdowns started.

Some museums have hit the goal virtually precisely, suggesting that they’ve a pure capability that they’re as soon as once more bumping up in opposition to. The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, for instance, recorded 2.7 million guests in 2019 and the identical in 2023, helped by the huge crowds who got here to see its Vermeer blockbuster (see web page 4). The Getty Villa in Los Angeles (442,000 vs 443,000) and the Nationwide Museum of Scotland (2.2 million vs 2.2 million) additionally in impact recorded the identical figures
as earlier than.

A bunch of different museums have been within the “back-to-normal” membership—with 2023 totals inside 10% both approach of their 2019 determine. These embrace the Vatican Museums (-2%), The Broad in Los Angeles (-2%), Virginia Museum of Advantageous Arts (-3%), the Museo Nacional del Prado in Madrid (-5%), the Nationwide Gallery of Artwork in Washington, DC (-6%), the British Museum in London (-7%) and the Musée du Louvre in Paris (-8%).

Some museums benefited from new areas such because the Artwork Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney, which opened a brand new extension in 2022. It acquired 1.9 million visits in 2023, up 51% from 2019. The Louvre Abu Dhabi, which opened in 2017, maybe by no means acquired an opportunity to succeed in its full potential earlier than Covid: it acquired 1.2 million guests, up 28%.

In complete, the highest 100 museums in our chart acquired 175 million guests in 2023, up on the previous 12 months’s 141 million, however nonetheless shy of the 230 million guests recorded in 2019.

Stragglers and strugglers

Nevertheless, the image will not be rosy in all places. A bunch of museums nonetheless appear to be unable to draw as many guests as they as soon as did. In some instances the reason is pretty apparent.

In Moscow, the Kremlin Museums have been down 67% from 2019 and the Storage Museum of Modern Artwork was down 65%—clearly impacted by Russia’s warfare in opposition to Ukraine and the collapse in overseas tourism to the nation.

However different strugglers are more durable to grasp. We discovered final 12 months that UK museums appeared to be down on their luck, and the image continues to be bleak for a lot of. Tate Britain and Tate Liverpool have been each nonetheless down 40%, though the previous was partly closed for a rehang and the latter closed from October; Kettle’s Yard, close to Cambridge, was 47% down, whereas V&A Dundee is 45% down.

On common the highest ten museums within the UK are down by 13% in contrast with 2019. Final 12 months, some London museums pointed to an absence of vacationers to clarify their falls: nevertheless, figures from Go to Britain for the primary 9 months of 2023 confirmed worldwide tourism was down simply 7% on 2019.

And, like in final 12 months’s survey, we discovered that the Nationwide Gallery in London is the museum with essentially the most lacking guests in contrast with 2019. Though another establishments had greater proportion falls, the Nationwide Gallery acquired 2.9 million fewer guests in 2023 than in 2019, a fall of 48% from six million to three.1 million. Whereas the gallery final 12 months blamed London’s sluggish post-Brexit tourism, the Nationwide Gallery carried out lots worse than comparable venues such because the British Museum (-7%), Tate Fashionable (-22%) and the V&A (-21%).

Weighing on its already weak numbers from 2022 was the closure of the gallery’s Sainsbury Wing (in phases from August 2022) for renovation, and the ensuing hoardings and fencing that now encompass the constructing’s Trafalgar Sq. frontage. The museum has additionally needed to improve safety preparations after a number of assaults on work by local weather protesters.

A spokesperson says: “Our planning for this era acknowledged what would inevitably be a smaller capability for the gallery, which is why our efforts have been targeted on reaching past the gallery partitions with the worldwide and nationwide touring programmes, and guaranteeing as many individuals can entry and benefit from the assortment and its tales digitally.” With a full reopening due in 2025, the museum might be hoping to rebuild some momentum and begin to carry individuals again, particularly off the again of this 12 months’s two hundredth anniversary celebrations.

Maybe all of the Nationwide Gallery’s guests have gone to its neighbour as an alternative. The close by Nationwide Portrait Gallery skipped the Covid climb again; it had already deliberate to close for a complete renovation in 2020, so opted to not reopen after the primary UK lockdown. The brand new Tracey Emin-designed doorways have been flung open in June 2023 and 1.2 million individuals visited within the closing six months of the 12 months. It is a 31% improve on the identical interval in 2019, and within the opening month the museum acquired a file 263,000 guests. One other profitable reopening in London was Younger V&A, previously the Museum of Childhood. Between July and the top of the 12 months, it acquired 405,000 guests, with hour-long queues forming throughout college holidays. That is greater than double the quantity for a similar interval in 2019.

Met again on high

In our report final 12 months, the Metropolitan Museum of Artwork in New York was toppled from its customary place because the US’s most-visited museum by the Nationwide Gallery of Artwork (NGA) in Washington, DC. In 2023 normality was restored as guests to the Met surged 67% to five.4 million, outpacing the NGA’s 3.8 million. The Met truly acquired 10% extra guests than it did in 2019, after revising its earlier determine down as a consequence of a change in counting methodology.

Elsewhere in New York, the Museum of Fashionable Artwork (MoMA) had greater than 2.8 million guests, 2% up on 2018, which was its final full 12 months of opening earlier than the pandemic. (In 2019 the museum closed for half the 12 months for a significant refurbishment.) The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum had 861,000 guests; it now receives fewer guests annually than its sister museum in Bilbao (1.3 million) however nonetheless greater than the significantly smaller Peggy Guggenheim in Venice (379,000). The fourth of the large New York museums, the Whitney Museum of American Artwork, had 768,000 guests, down 26% on 2019.

Los Angeles is cementing its place as one of many principal US artwork museum hotspots. The Getty Heart and the Huntington Library, Artwork Museum and Botanical Gardens each acquired greater than one million guests, whereas the Los Angeles County Museum of Artwork and the Broad have been shut behind on 902,000 and 896,000 guests respectively. The latter held its most profitable ticketed exhibition ever, a survey of Keith Haring, which welcomed 171,000 individuals.

As within the UK, there’s plenty of variability within the efficiency of US museums, with no clear sample. Some had their greatest years ever: the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Artwork recorded 785,000 guests, many greater than the 60,000 resident inhabitants of its hometown, Bentonville, Arkansas. It was helped by massive reveals of Annie Leibowitz and Diego Rivera. The museum, which was based by the Walmart inheritor Alice Walton in 2011, gives free entry, which is unusual within the US. Throughout the Pacific Ocean, the Honolulu Museum of Artwork beat its 2019 determine handily with 93,000 guests, up from 55,000. Regardless of these success tales, the highest ten US museums in 2023 have been nonetheless on common 9% down on 2019.

Springtime for Europe

Though the Musée du Louvre tops our chart as soon as once more, there have been combined fortunes for its fellow Parisian museums. The Fondation Louis Vuitton noticed its figures soar to virtually 1.6 million in 2023, usurping the heady heights of its earlier file 12 months in 2017 when it had 1.4 million guests, which was then because of an exhibition of Fashionable masterpieces from the Shchukin Assortment. In 2023 it was a present of Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat that pulled within the crowds (662,000 guests). The Musée d’Orsay additionally did properly with 3.9 million guests, up by 6% in contrast with 2019. However over within the Beaubourg district, the Centre Pompidou’s figures have been 13% down on the earlier 12 months, with 2.6 million in contrast with 3 million in 2022, and 20% down on its pre-Covid numbers.

In Germany the Humboldt Discussion board goes from energy to energy since opening three years in the past, with 1.7 million guests in 2023 making it the nation’s most visited artwork museum.

In the meantime in Italy, the nation’s hottest museums are properly and really buzzing, with a number of reporting file attendances. In Florence, the Uffizi had its largest ever attendance with 2.7 million guests, up 15% on 2019, as did the Galleria dell’ Accademia, smashing its earlier 2018 file of 1.7 million guests to welcome two million in 2023. The Museo Egizio in Turin, which celebrates its bicentenary this 12 months, additionally had a file 12 months, breaking the a million mark for the primary time with 1.1 million guests in 2023, up by 1 / 4 in contrast with 2019. In the meantime, the Vatican Museums—the nation’s hottest artwork venue—with virtually 6.8 million guests was down simply 2% on its file 2019 determine however nonetheless properly above earlier years.

Within the Nordics, Finland’s hottest artwork museum, the Ateneum Artwork Museum, had virtually 534,000 guests, beating its 2017 file by a powerful 20% regardless of solely opening from April onwards following renovation work. The Nationwide Gallery of Denmark additionally had a file 12 months with 617,000 guests (up a whopping 58% on 2019). The Nasjonalmuseet in Oslo welcomed a powerful 1.2 million guests throughout its first full 12 months of opening, turning into the preferred artwork museum in Scandinavia.

Chinese language growth

China was the primary nation to be hit by Covid-19 and instituted a few of the world’s most stringent lockdowns to fight it, which closely impacted museum customer numbers. Now the doorways are again open and 2023 noticed a growth in museum visiting, in accordance with Chinese language state-owned media. In accordance with the state-owned China Central Tv,
1.2 billion visits have been made to Chinese language museums (of every kind) in 2023, surpassing 2019. The newspaper China Day by day reported that many museums are working at capability, and utilizing timed on-line tickets to handle demand. Nevertheless, touts are utilizing on-line bots to snap up the accessible tickets, making it tough for most of the people to go to. “Although we’ve lifted the cap on guests to the utmost quantity, we will’t meet the rising demand,” Zhu Yuanyuan, the director of Nanjing Museum’s public schooling division, informed China Day by day. “The museum is all the time full of holiday makers. It’s noisy and crowded, and this isn’t  expertise.”

Hong Kong’s M+ museum, which opened in 2021, reached its highest quantity to this point, with 2.8 million guests, whereas Beijing’s UCCA Heart for Modern Artwork doubled its 2022 determine, with 503,000.

Elsewhere in Asia, Nationwide Gallery Singapore acquired 1.7 million visits, slightly below 2019. The Nationwide Artwork Heart, Tokyo had 2.3 million guests, up 17% on 2019, whereas the Tokyo Metropolitan Artwork Museum was nonetheless 33% down on 2019, with 1.9 million. South Korea’s museums had already bounced again strongly in 2022, and 2023 noticed them entice much more guests. With 4.2 million guests, the Seoul department of the Nationwide Museum of Korea gained 25% on 2019.

After a tough few years, the longer term appears vivid.

• Venues marked with a dagger (†) point out establishments with multiple constructing. We’ve separated the venues to provide a extra correct reflection of footfall. The establishments’ further venues and mixed totals are: The Met (Met Cloisters: 227,000; complete for the Met: 5,591,000); Nationwide Galleries Scotland: Nationwide (Fashionable: 308,386; Portrait 264,866; complete with Nationwide: 2,409,309); NGV Worldwide and Ian Potter Centre (complete for Nationwide Gallery of Victoria: 2,532,238); Reina Sofia (Palacio de Velázquez: 536,425; Palacio de Cristal: 479,281; complete all three websites: 2,530,560); Higher Belvedere (Decrease Belvedere: 395,710; Belvedere 21: 98,630; complete for Galerie Belvedere: 1,834,000); Getty Heart (Getty Villa: 441,913; complete for each: 1,693,047); Smithsonian American Artwork Museum (Renwick Gallery: 281,035; complete for each 1,166,129); de Younger (Legion of Honor: 345,221; complete for Advantageous Arts Museums of San Francisco: 1,344,866). *The Met revised its 2019 customer quantity to 4,898,474 as a consequence of a modified counting methodology. **In 2019 we reported Reina Sofia venues as a mixed determine, however we now break up them to be according to different venues. ***NPG and SAAM share a constructing, therefore reporting the identical determine. We’ve due to this fact ranked them equally and counted these guests solely as soon as in our total totals
• All the info is equipped by the establishments involved. The analysis for the 2023 report was carried out by way of electronic mail and phone throughout February and March 2024. Museums who didn’t provide knowledge don’t seem on the desk