The Peggy Guggenheim Collection closes 2009 with over 360,000 visitors
In 2009 The Peggy Guggenheim Collection consolidated its attendance numbers, reaching the considerable total of 347,183 visitors in the 311 days it was open to the public. The daily average was 1,116, which included 5,263 students and 622 teachers who participated in the museum’s education program “A Scuola di Guggenheim”. To this number the 14,000 guests who attended the collection’s inaugurations, special tours, and private and company events can be added, for a comprehensive total of over 361,000 visitors.
Two exhibitions that made 2009 particularly successful closed in the first weeks of 2010. With 326,726 visitors from February 18, 2009 to January 11, 2010, Masterpieces of Futurism at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection earned its second place ranking among the most visited exhibitions in Italy in the past twelve months; open for 284 days, the show averaged 1,150 visitors per day. The national and international press showed extensive interest and wrote with enthusiasm about the museum’s important homage to the avant-garde movement’s centenary. The exhibition included works by “the first and the best” Futurist masters, such as Boccioni, Balla, Carrà, Russolo, and Severini.
From October 10, 2009 to January 11, 2010, the picturesque Venetian scenes of Maurice Prendergast—“the paintbrush reporter”—were admired by 82,080 visitors, averaging 1,013 per day during its 81-day run. Tourists and Venetians alike crowded the museum to enjoy Prendergast’s sunny Italian views and to admire his “luminous tapestries, with their distinctive color patches”.
The Peggy Guggenheim Collection begins the new year by celebrating its 30th Anniversary with the same spirit of openness and innovation that characterized Peggy Guggenheim.