The Art Newspaper has unveiled the 100 most popular art museums in the world in 2021 in its annual visitor figures survey, with the museum sector welcoming back growing numbers of visitors.
Last year’s survey showed that attendance dropped by 77 percent globally in 2020. The new survey reveals that attendance still has some way to go to reach pre-pandemic levels.
However, the road to recovery has begun. In 2021, the top 100 institutions in the world enjoyed a combined total of 71 million visitors compared with 54 million in 2020.
There was a 31 percent rise in visitors year-on-year, although overall numbers were still 69 percent lower than in 2019, when the top 100 museums welcomed 230 million visitors.
The Musée du Louvre in Paris tops the list with 2.8 million visitors in 2021, a five percent increase compared to 2020’s numbers. In 2019, it was visited by 9.6 million people.
In second place is the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg, which enjoyed 2.3 million visitors in 2021, an increase of 88 percent on its 2020 figure. The museum was closed for just 10 days, whereas the Louvre was shut for 116 days.
Recovery begins for museum sector
Other Russian museums to make the top 10 are Moscow’s Multimedia Art Museum, Russia’s State Hermitage Museum, and the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow.
The Art Newspaper also found that 72 percent of museums had more visitors in 2021 than in 2020, while 28 percent had fewer guests.
The British Museum was the most visited art museum in the UK with 1.3 million guests in 2021, a 4 percent increase on 2020. The National Gallery recorded lower visitor figures in 2021 than in 2020.
The top three most visited art museums in the US were New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
These all experienced increases in attendance compared with 2020, with 84 percent, 133 percent and 64 percent more visitors respectively.
Also in the top 10 were Madrid’s Reina Sofia (32 percent more visitors in 2021), the Vatican Museums (24 percent more visitors), and the Centre Pompidou in Paris (64 percent more visitors).
Images: Louvre/State Hermitage Museum
