NGV Director Dr Gerard Vaughan today announced that in the National Gallery of Victoria had been declared the 25th most visited art gallery in the world in 2011.
Dr Vaughan said the NGV had also been judged the most attended gallery in Australia, according to the London Art Newspaper’s survey of art gallery attendances around the world.
The NGV’s overall attendance figure was 1,547,495, bringing it in ahead of Tate Britain, the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Rijksmuseum and every other Australian gallery.
Dr Vaughan said according to the Art Newspaper’s criteria, the NGV’s aggregated annual visitation figures placed it in this leading position.
“This is a fantastic achievement, especially when we consider that all the galleries ranked ahead of us, and many ranked lower than us, are in cities of populations of more than 10 million people”, he said.
“The majority of visitors to many of the galleries ranked ahead of us are tourists.
“Of our total visitors, we know that between 70 per cent and 75 per cent are consistently from Melbourne and regional Victoria.
“This means that by any standards the NGV enjoys one of the highest community participation rates in the world. Any way you look at it, Victorians love their art!
“We are delighted to find we rank so well in regard to worldwide gallery attendances.”
He said the NGV’s Melbourne Winter Masterpieces exhibition, Vienna: Art & Design had contributed significantly to the NGV’s high attendance figures.
“In June 2012 we will open this year’s spectacular Melbourne Winter Masterpieces Exhibition, Napoleon: Revolution to Empire. Exclusive to Melbourne, this panoramic exhibition features nearly 300 works, examining French art, culture and life from the 1770s to the 1820s, bringing to Australia for the first time hundreds of objects of breathtaking opulence and luxury from the great Napoleonic collections in Europe.”
“This ranking today confirms that Victorians, and our many visitors toMelbourne, appreciate both the NGV’s highly important permanent collection, and our strong exhibition program.”
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