U.S. museum attendance was beset by natural disasters and political instability in 2025, according to The Art Newspaper's annual survey of "the world's 100 most visited art museums."
The January 2025 wildfires in Los Angeles hit the Getty Villa particularly hard. Attendance dropped nearly 60% due to the institution being closed for around half the year in response to damage caused by The Palisades fire. (Reached by email, The Getty noted the low attendance in 2025 was the result of the fire-related closure and not reflective of a drop in overall attendance since the museum reopened last June. Villa attendance numbers remain steady.)
Meanwhile, the federal government shutdown last fall crippled D.C. museums. The National Gallery of Art lost more than a quarter of its audience compared to the previous year. The National Museum of African American History and Culture's and the National Museum of the American Indian's numbers both dropped by nearly 15%. The National Portrait Gallery and Smithsonian American Art Museum saw audiences reduced to close to half of their pre-COVID size.
"The two museums had a particularly volatile year—with prolonged political battles with the Trump administration over programming, artists pulling out of exhibitions amid accusations of institutional censorship and high-level resignations," The Art Newspaper said.
Stability despite volatility
Despite unsteadiness across the museum industry, the country's most-visited institutions remained relatively stable.
Visitorship at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art — the world's fifth most-visited art museum — was up by nearly 5%. Bolstered by the reopening of the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing, it attracted nearly 6 million visitors in 2025. Despite its shutdown troubles, the National Gallery of Art still ranked second in the U.S. in terms of visitor numbers last year. The Museum of Modern Art in New York saw a modest increase compared to 2024. And the Art Institute of Chicago experienced close to a 15% rise in attendance.
The power of prestige
The report attributes some of these gains to the power of blockbuster shows and big-name artists to draw crowds.
In New York, "Superfine: Tailoring Black Style" at The Met and the Jack Whitten retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art were top draws. "The Power of Names: Van Gogh" and Impressionist shows were major successes in D.C., LA and Boston. At the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, a single Vincent Van Gogh exhibition accounted for more than a quarter of the museum's annual attendance, which was up overall by 7% compared with 2024.
Big regional gains
Some regional museums also saw big gains.
The San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art nearly doubled its attendance. The Cleveland Museum of Art and Toledo Museum of Art also experienced significant jumps of more than 20%. Several museums even managed to best their pre-COVID benchmarks from 2019, including the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park in Grand Rapids, Mich.
NPR has reached out to these museums for comment.
"In 2025, the museum welcomed more than 800,000 visitors, which was the highest attendance in the CMA's nearly 110 year history," said Todd Mesek, the Cleveland Museum of Art's chief marketing officer in an email to NPR. "We believe that momentum is the result of sustained investment in exhibitions, public programs, and a commitment to free access, which ensures that our collection remains open and meaningful to all." Mesek added that the ticketed special exhibition "Takashi Murakami: Stepping on the Tail of a Rainbow" generated the museum's highest attendance in more than 25 years. The museum does not charge entry — and mostly never has — except for special exhibitions.
Global trends
The U.S. findings appear generally modest compared to other parts of the world covered in The Art Newspaper's report.
Notwithstanding a difficult year marked by a high-profile jewelry theft among other crises, the Louvre Museum in Paris — the world's most-visited museum — still experienced a close to 5% gain in visitorship. It attracted more than 9 million people in 2025. And attendance at museums in East Asia — where, according to the report, "demand seems almost unlimited" — was particularly robust. The world's third most-visited institution, the National Museum of Korea, Seoul, saw a whopping 72% jump on the previous year — "one of the largest rises in absolute numbers we have ever seen," the report said.
However, political unrest derailed attendance at some institutions, especially in the Middle East. The Israel Museum lost 40% of its visitors compared with 2024, owing to Israel's war in Gaza. The Tel Aviv Museum of Art faced cancellations of international exhibitions, and was shut for well over half the year owing to security concerns.
More than 200 million visits were made to the top 100 museums on The Art Newspaper's list, the report said. While this figure is still under the 230 million recorded in 2019, it is a vast improvement on the 54 million recorded in 2020.
"Our data for 2025 shows that, on the whole, art museums are as popular as they have ever been, with many of the biggest museums continuing to welcome millions every year," the report said.
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