The latest global ranking of art museums is based on The Art Newspaper’s exclusive Visitor Figures survey for the year 2022, reporters were told.
The Warsaw Royal Castle attracted 1,755,267 visitors last year, a 50 percent spike compared with 2021 and a 40 percent increase from 2019, according to the study.
This result put the Royal Castle at number 24 in The Art Newspaper’s ranking of the world’s 100 most popular art museums in 2022.
Paulina Szwed-Piestrzeniewicz, an official at the Royal Castle in Warsaw, said that everyone at the institution was “immensely happy and satisfied” with such a “high finish” in the global league table, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
Szwed-Piestrzeniewicz added that the result vindicated the Royal Castle’s “good and effective strategy for the COVID-19 pandemic.”
She said that although it was a “difficult time for everyone,” the Royal Castle museum "nonetheless kept working intensively on future exhibitions and artistic projects, as well as maintaining a robust online presence.”
As a result, “we didn’t lose contact with our audience,” Szwed-Piestrzeniewicz said, “and when arts institutions were finally able to open their doors, the Royal Castle was ready to offer a varied range of exhibitions, as well as scientific and educational projects.”
Record crowds in 2022
Szwed-Piestrzeniewicz told reporters that last year’s visitor numbers of over 1.7 million were “the biggest ever,” partly thanks to some crowd-pulling temporary exhibitions.
She mentioned a showcase of paintings by Sandro Botticelli and other Renaissance masters, from the collection of Italy’s Accademia Carrara, which attracted over 54,000 people, PAP reported.
Meanwhile, current highlights include Love and Duty, an exhibition about Poland’s 1863 January Uprising against Russia, and Crème de la crème, a presentation of the museum’s most valuable acquisitions over the past two years, which range from paintings by the likes of Angelika Kauffmann to valuable pieces of Meissen porcelain and antique furniture, officials said.
In April, the Royal Castle will launch a new exhibition about the great Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus as the country marks the 550th anniversary of his birth, the PAP news agency reported.
Royal Castle for Ukraine
Szwed-Piestrzeniewicz said that the Royal Castle also caters to a new audience of refugees from war-torn Ukraine.
The institution offers "museotherapy" classes in the Ukrainian language, as well as posting Ukrainian-language content on its social media and maintaining a Ukrainian version of its website, among other activities.
“We believe that the Royal Castle’s high finish in the latest global ranking by The Art Newspaper will be reflected in the popularity of our institution," Szwed-Piestrzeniewicz told the PAP news agency.
(pm/gs)
Source: PAP, The Art Newspaper, The Royal Castle in Warsaw