Visitor numbers to Tate have increased to 7.4m, making it the most popular arts organisation in the world after the Louvre.
The Paris-based gallery welcomes approximately 8.5m visitors a year and although Tate is some way off that figure, it did see a 5 per cent growth between April 2010 and March 2011 in spite of government cuts to the arts and the effects of the recession.
More impressively from 2004-05 to 2010-11 there has been a total increase of almost 20 per cent in annual visitor numbers, including a record year of 7.7m visitors achieved in 2006-07.
Announcing its success in the Annual Report, Tate also revealed that more than 287 works of art had been acquired for their four galleries this year.
Exhibitions such as Picasso: Peace and Freedom, which investigated the artist’s often overlooked role as a political campaigner and activist, attracted more than 95,000 visitors to Tate Liverpool, making it the second most popular exhibition in the gallery’s history after Gustav Klimt: Painting, Design and Modern Life in Vienna 1900, which attracted 200,000 visitors in 2008.
Not content with being number two to the Louvre, Tate has also announced the opening of its ‘oil tanks’ expansion to the popular Tate Modern gallery to tie in with the 2012 Olympics.
The former power station’s enormous oil tanks – which reach over 30m across and 7m high - have lain unused since the power station was decommissioned. They are now being transformed into an art space for live performances and learning. Major donations to the project have helped raise 70 per cent of the total capital costs of £215m.
Lord Browne, Chairman of the Tate Trustees, said in a statement: “Phase 1 of the new development of Tate Modern will open next summer when London will be the focus of worldwide attention for the London 2012 Olympic Games. This is an important moment. It starts with the Olympics but will build momentum beyond.
“Once completed, the new Tate Modern will represent the most important new building for a national arts organisation in the UK since the creation of the British Library in 1998. Tate Modern is already the most popular modern art museum in the world – our aim is to make it better still.”