Metropolitan Museum Posts Best Attendance in Nearly a Decade
More than 5.2 million people visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art during the fiscal year that ended Wednesday, the institution’s best performance since the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Despite the impact of an economy in recession, the number of visitors was up more than 10 percent over the comparable period a year earlier. “Attendance fell by a million” after 9/11, said Harold Holzer, a spokesman for the museum, “and has been working its way back” ever since, “hovering around 4.7 million” in recent years. Visitors from abroad accounted for nearly 40 percent of the attendance, and the single most popular exhibition was “Picasso in the Metropolitan Museum of Art,” which opened on April 27, will close on Aug. 15 and has already attracted more than 380,00 visitors.
The Museum of Modern Art also reported robust growth in its attendance during the fiscal year just ended, drawing more than three million visitors, a record, despite discouraging economic conditions. That represented an increase of about 9 percent over last year, with a pair of exhibitions performing especially strongly: “Monet’s Water Lilies” drew 857,386 people, and “Tim Burton” attracted 810,511.
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