Member Article

Leonardo da Vinci imports behind 128% surge in Newcastle art gallery footfall

Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums (TWAM), the region’s museum, art gallery and archives service, is celebrating a record busy period for February half term.

A new exhibition of drawings by Leonardo da Vinci attracted record numbers at Newcastle’s Laing Art Gallery, with footfall up 128% compared with the same period last year.

Leonardo da Vinci: Ten Drawings from the Royal Collection, on show at the Laing until 24 April, is already set to be the most popular charging exhibition ever at the Laing. More than 4,500 tickets were sold to the exhibition during half term.

Moreover, The Shipley Art Gallery in Gateshead saw February half term visitor figures rise 72% whilst South Shields Museum saw a 41% increase.

Popular exhibitions including Spineless: Rainforest Creepy Crawlies at South Shields Museum and a new programme of creative technology workshops across five museums, Future Makers, helped drive the impressive rise in visitor figures.

Iain Watson, Director of Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums said: “It has been a phenomenal half term for our venues. These fantastic figures show just how much local people and visitors to the region enjoy and value museums.

“The Leonardo da Vinci exhibition at the Laing is proving to be hugely popular as we’d anticipated and I hope people will take the opportunity to see this iconic artwork while it is in the region.”

Ian also cited his satisfaction over the Future Makers programme, a partnership between Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums and Manchester-based digital art organisation FutureEverything, which is made up of workshops and events enabling children and adults to use new technologies for design and making.

“I’m also very proud of what we have achieved with our new Future Makers programme. It has been wonderful to see people inspired by our collections inventing and designing new imaginative creations.”