The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, announced visitor numbers of 6.28 million in the year to June 30th 2012. This is the highest recorded since records began more than 40 years ago and represents a 600,000 increase on the previous year.
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Thomas P. Campbell, the Metropolitan Museum’s Director and CEO, said, “We are delighted by this extraordinary response to the Met’s collections, exhibitions, and programs over the past year. Anchoring this success was the public’s interest in the new galleries for our Islamic collection and our American Wing, with each of those areas receiving hundreds of thousands of visitors in their inaugural months. Attendance at our exhibitions, which covered a broad spectrum of topics traversing centuries and geographic areas, was also strong throughout the year. The growth of our audience—frequent as well as first-time visitors from around the world—once again demonstrates that the Met is a truly global museum for this truly global city.”
Analysis of the visitor numbers by gallery/exhibit showed:
- New Galleries for the Art of the Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, and Later South Asia (opened November 1, 2011) - 593,000 visitors
- New American Wing Galleries for Paintings, Sculpture, and Decorative Arts (opened January 19, 2012) - 365,000 visitors
- The Steins Collect: Matisse, Picasso, and the Parisian Avant-Garde - 324,000 visitors
- The Renaissance Portrait from Donatello to Bellini - 205,000 visitors
- Tomás Saraceno on the Roof: Cloud City - 179,000 visitors
- Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations - 166,000 visitors
- The Game of Kings: Medieval Ivory Chessmen from the Isle of Lewis at The Cloisters - 97,000 visitors
- The Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty exhibition closed on August 7, 2011, and drew in total 662,000 visitors, contributing to the Fiscal Year 2012’s record attendance during its final five weeks.
Almost 218,000 school visitors were welcomed by the Museum, almost 3,200 more than the previous year.
The Metropolitan Museum’s website (www.metmuseum.org) had 44 million visits in the same period, whilst the Museum’s Facebook page now has more than 677,000 fans and its Twitter feed has more than 471,000 followers.
Museum membership has now reached a record-breaking 170,000.