Attendance at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art has fully recovered from the pandemic, says its executive director, Rod Bigelow, with the museum recording its most visitors ever in 2023.
“Contrary to many institutions around the country, we had the largest attendance that we’ve ever had in 2023, and we’re on track for a robust ’24,” he said last week. Nearly 785,000 people visited the Bentonville museum last year.
Earlier this year, the Art Newspaper, which describes itself as “the journal of record for the visual arts world, covering international news and events,” listed the 100 most popular museums in the world. Crystal Bridges made the list at No. 87, ahead of the Whitney Museum in New York (No. 88) and even the Fondation Monet in Giverny, France, which manages the house and gardens of artist Claude Monet (No. 91).
At the top of the Art Newspaper’s list were the Louvre in Paris (8.9 million visitors in 2023), the Vatican Museums in Vatican City, Italy (6.8 million), and the British Museum in London (5.8 million).
The Art Newspaper said that many of the world’s leading art museums had returned to their pre-pandemic levels of attendance in 2023. It noted that last year, Crystal Bridges “was helped by big shows of Annie Leibovitz and Diego Rivera. The museum, which was founded by the Walmart heir Alice Walton in 2011, offers free entry, which is uncommon in the US.”
The museum is currently undergoing an expansion, adding 114,056 SF to its 200,000 SF. Stay tuned for more updates.
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