Have You Been To An Art Museum Lately?

When was the last time you visiting an Art Museum or Gallery?

Art Museums and Galleries are ranked according to the number of visitors. This popularity contest seems to designated the best art museums.

How many of these have you been to?


The top art galleries and museums in 2009, based on their annual visitor numbers are as follows.

1. 8,500,000 Louvre Paris
2. 5,569,981 British Museum, London
3. 4,891,450 Metropolitan Museum of Art
4. 4,780,030 National Gallery, London
5. 4,747,537 Tate Modern, London
6. 4,605,606 National Gallery of Art, Washington
7. 3,530,000 Centre Pompidou, Paris
8. 3,022,012 Musée d'Orsay, Paris
9. 2,763,094 Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid
10. 2,730,204 National Museum of Korea, Seoul
11. 2,672,761 Museum of Modern Art, New York
12. 2,574,804 Taiwan Palace Museum, Taiwan
13. 2,426,203 State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg
14. 2,273,634 Tokyo National Museum, Tokyo
15. 2,269,900 Victoria and Albert Museum, London
16. 2,087,415 Reina Sofía, Madrid
17. 1,961,843 National Portrait Gallery, London
18. 1,846,889 Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago
19. 1,840,812 De Young Museum, San Francisco
20. 1,572,171 Moscow Kremlin Museum, Moscow
21. 1,530,318 Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence
22. 1,513,249 National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo
23. 1,501,837 Tate Britain, London
24. 1,500,000 Mori Art Museum, Tokyo
25. 1,496,438 Musée Quai Branly, Paris
26. 1,451,139 Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam
27. 1,368,096 Kelvingrove Art Gallery, Glasgow
28. 1,312,762 Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
29. 1,300,000 Children's Museum, Indianopolis
30. 1,283,401 State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

I have been to five of these; Louvre, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Musée d'Orsay, Museum of Modern Art, and the De Young Museum. Looks like London would be a great place to travel inorder to view good art.

If you are interested in more statistics, including which art exhibits were most popular, you can find more information from The Art Newspaper's annual review of art galleries and museums and the exhibitions held around the world in 2009.

Artistic Christmas E-Cards

If you have not as yet mailed your Christmas cards, there are many FREE Christmas e-cards available.
Some of the best are on museum sites!

Victoria and Albert Museum - Christmas e-cards - these are all sent on 25th December

National Museums Liverpool
All proceeds support National Museums Liverpool. Includes specific microsites for : Vintage Christmas and New Year e-cards and the Stewart Bale collection (black and white photos of Christmas stores from the 40s and 50s)

National Museum of Wales - Christmas e-cards

Tate Museums - Tate Kids e-cards

Geffrye Museum - Christmas e-cards

Interestingly, I could find very little evidence of the development of a slick and simple e-card operation on the websites of the American Art Museums. The Met has nothing and I tried a few others with the same results.

Most-Visited Art Museums

The top five most-visited museums in 2008 were:

1. Louvre, Paris
2. British Museum, London
3. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
4. Tate Modern, London
5. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York


The most-visited museum:

The Musée du Louvre or officially the Grand Louvre — in English, the Louvre Museum or Great Louvre, or simply the Louvre — is the national museum of France, the most visited museum in the world, and a historic monument.

It is a central landmark of Paris, located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement (neighbourhood). Nearly 35,000 objects from the 6th century BC to the 19th century are exhibited over an area of 60,600 square metres (652,300 square feet).

Historical facts:

The museum opened on 10 August 1793 with an exhibition of 537 paintings, the majority of the works being confiscated church and royal property. Because of structural problems with the building, the museum was closed in 1796 until 1801.

The size of the collection increased under Napoleon when the museum was renamed the Musée Napoléon. After his defeat at Waterloo, many works seized by Napoleon's armies were returned to their original owners.

The collection was further increased during the reigns of Louis XVIII and Charles X, and during the Second Empire the museum gained 20,000 pieces. Holdings have grown steadily through donations and gifts since the Third Republic, except during the two World Wars.

As of 2008, the collection is divided among eight curatorial departments: Egyptian Antiquities; Near Eastern Antiquities; Greek, Etruscan, and Roman Antiquities; Islamic Art; Sculpture; Decorative Arts; Paintings; and Prints and Drawings.