The Whitney Museum of American Art has raised its ticket prices and become the most expensive museum in New York, surpassing the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
In its first admission fee increase since 2016, the Whitney has raised ticket prices for adults from $25 to $30, and from $18 to $24 for seniors and students. The reason for the price hike is “inflation, rising costs, and still-recovering attendance”, the museum said.
The raise in fees “will help keep the institution and its mission to support art and artists strong in a landscape acutely changed by a variety of factors, including inflation, rising costs, and still-recovering attendance”, the institution said in a press release.
The Art Newspaper reports that the new adult fees for the Whitney now match those for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and its student and senior prices are even higher than those at the Met.
First admission increase since 2016
As the Whitney raises its admission fees, Harvard Art Museums has started offering free admission for all visitors to its three museums and four research centres in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
In the UK, Cambridgeshire’s Wisbech & Fenland Museum is to charge an admission fee for the first time in 100 years as it struggles to pay its daily running costs.
Founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney and opened in 1931, the Whitney Museum of American Art is home to a range of 20th century and contemporary American art. Its permanent collection includes more than 25,000 works.
Adam Weinberg, director of the Whitney, is stepping down after 20 years in October. He is being replaced by Scott Rothkopf
