Vincent van Gogh Almond Blossom 1890 Courtesy Van Gogh Museum Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)
On the heels of closing their respective summer blockbusters, both the National Gallery of Canada and the Art Gallery of Ontario have released attendance figures indicating these were some of their most popular exhibitions ever.
On Tuesday, the Globe and Mail reported that the National Gallery’s “Van Gogh: Up Close” had drawn a total paid attendance of just over 230,100 visitors. The paper noted this is 15 per cent higher than the NGC’s original projection, making it the “best-attended single NGC show since ‘Renoir’s Portraits: Impressions of an Age’ ran in the summer of 1997.”
On Thursday, the Art Gallery of Ontario issued a release stating that “Picasso: Masterpieces from Musée National, Paris,” drew 308,582 visitors, ranking as the fourth highest-attended exhibition in the AGO’s history.
Both exhibitions offered the sole Canadian stops for multi-venue exhibitions of European masters.
