350,000 art lovers visited the Art Museum of Estonia last year

In the year 2024, 349,004 art lovers visited the branches, exhibitions and audience programmes of the Art Museum of Estonia. Among them, over 25,100 students and adults took part in educational programmes.

Compared to the previous year, the number of visitors to the Art Museum of Estonia remained about the same, meaning that the museum continues to hold an important place in the hearts of both locals and tourists. “The Art Museum of Estonia may be 105 years old, but we are still a rapidly evolving organisation, combining old knowledge and traditions with a modern outlook and ambition. No culture without art, no state without culture!” said Sirje Helme, Chief Executive Officer of the Art Museum of Estonia, looking back on 2024.

The Art Museum of Estonia celebrated its 105^th birthday last year and to mark the occasion, the exhibition From Mittens to Köler: The Birth of the Museum’s Collection continues until March in the Kadriorg Museum. The exhibition presents the story of the development of the collection of the Art Museum of Estonia from its foundation in 1919 until World War II. From the beginning of 2024, accessibility for people with special needs has been significantly improved at the Niguliste Museum, with audio guides for the visually impaired and the blind, and sign-language translations of important works on a tablet computer for the deaf and people with hearing loss. The Art Museum of Estonia was also a key partner in the major exhibition of Anu Põder’s works Anu Põder: Space for My Body, held in 2024 at the Muzeum Susch in Switzerland, which attracted widespread international attention.

Highly popular among last year’s exhibitions were Borderless Universe in Their Minds: Italian Transavantgarde and Estonian Calm Expressionism, History and Mystery: Latin American Art and Europe, and Elisarion: Elisàr von Kupffer and Jaanus Samma at the Kumu Art Museum and España Blanca y Negra: Vision of Spain, from Fortuny to Picasso at the Kadriorg Art Museum. The latter exhibition of Spanish art became one of the most popular exhibitions of all time at the Kadriorg Art Museum, and was visited by King Felipe VI of Spain on 23 June.

Last year’s favourites among history buffs were the Mikkel Museum’s exhibition The Kügelgens: The Story of one Baltic-German Family and the exhibition There and Back: The Pilgrimages of Livonians in Medieval Europe in the tower gallery of the Niguliste Museum. The Adamson-Eric Museum’s exhibition (Un)Balanced: Exhibition About Noticing and Peace of Mind dealt with the importance of mental health in society. The exhibition was accompanied by a thorough six-part lecture programme on mental health, delivered by trainers from the Peaasi.ee portal. At the end of the year, the Estonian Museum Association awarded the Peaasi.ee team the title of Friends of Museums 2024.

Of last year’s popular exhibitions at the Kumu Art Museum, The Life and Death of Mr. N: Bourgeois Spaces by Urmas Lüüs and, until 5 January only, Jevgeni Zolotko: The Secret of Adam are still open. At the Mikkel Museum, the exhibition Sooster 100: View from Private Collections summarises the creative career of Ülo Sooster, one of the most important innovators of Estonian post-war modernism. The Niguliste Museum invites everyone to the exhibition Unicorn in the Magical Forest to meet these wonderful creatures on objects and works of art from the 16^th to the 21^st century.

See the exhibitions opening at the Art Museum of Estonia in 2025 here.