“Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers” becomes the most attended exhibition in National Gallery history
The National Gallery in London has announced record-breaking attendance figures for its latest exhibition, Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers, which ran from 14 September 2024 to 19 January 2025. The exhibition attracted 334,589 visitors, making it the most popular ticketed show in the institution’s history.
The final weekend of the exhibition, from 17 to 19 January 2025, turned into a cultural landmark for the city, with the gallery staying open overnight from Friday to Saturday to meet demand. This was only the second time in the Gallery’s history such an extended opening occurred, the first being for “Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan” in 2012, which welcomed 323,827 visitors. Over its closing weekend, 19,582 people attended the exhibition, averaging one visitor every 10 seconds. Lines stretched through the night as those lucky enough to have secured tickets mingled with hopefuls eager to witness Van Gogh’s masterpieces.
The exhibition featured a dazzling array of oil paintings and rare drawings, many on loan from private collections and museums worldwide. For the first time in over a century, one of the Philadelphia Museum’s versions of “Sunflowers” travelled outside the United States to be displayed alongside the National Gallery’s own version and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts’ “La Berceuse (The Lullaby)”. This reunion recreated the setting of Van Gogh’s Yellow House in Arles, where the pieces had originally hung together in 1889.
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- Photo: Margarita Bagrova
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- Photo: Margarita Bagrova
Dr Gabriele Finaldi, Director of the National Gallery, commented:
“I am delighted that there have been over 330,000 visits to Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers. Van Gogh has become a talisman for passion, authenticity and commitment to his art. The paintings in this exhibition are among his most striking works and have a freshness and immediacy about them. The show presents Van Gogh as a very serious painter but his ‘lust for life’, as Irving Stone put it, remains evident and infectious.”
The exhibition faced significant challenges during its run. Early in its tenure, both “Sunflowers” paintings were targeted by climate activists from the Just Stop Oil movement, who threw tomato soup on the artworks. The Gallery responded swiftly to protect the pieces and subsequently enhanced security measures. Meanwhile, the exhibition was held amid ongoing renovations in the Sainsbury’s Wing, which is scheduled to reopen in May 2025.
Photo: Margarita Bagrova
Margarita Bagrova, publisher and editor-in-chief of Afisha.London, remarked:
“The National Gallery has done a phenomenal job bringing together masterpieces that had once shared the same space but were separated for decades. This exhibition is a true gift to art lovers, reminding us why Van Gogh’s work continues to resonate: it is pure energy, passion, and dedication to art.”
Running for 125 days, the exhibition attracted an average of 2,676 visitors per day, with its catalogue making it onto the Sunday Times bestseller list.
The show was a key event in the National Gallery’s 200th-anniversary celebrations, with another major exhibition, ‘Siena: The Rise of Painting, 1300–1350’, set to open on 8 March 2025.
Cover photo: Margarita Bagrova
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