29% rise in visits to the National Gallery in 2025 after Bicentenary and re-opening of Sainsbury Wing

Over four million people saw a National Gallery painting in person in 2025 - wherever they were on display. 

4,213,845 visits were made in person in 2025 to the National Gallery, London, and to its exhibitions, displays and other creative programmes on tour. *

4,147,544 visits were made to the National Gallery’s Trafalgar Square site in London during 2025 (that is an increase of 29% on the 2024 figure of 3,203,451). 

Following its Bicentenary in 2024, the Gallery benefitted from the opening of the newly transformed Sainsbury Wing – restoring the 30% visitor capacity that had been lost during its temporary closure for renovation – and the opening of CC Land: The Wonder of Art, the biggest ever rehang of the Gallery’s collection (both from 10 May 2025).    

The Bicentenary activities also ended in summer 2025 with the 'Art Road Trip' around Britain and Northern Ireland and Jeremy Deller’s nationwide celebration 'The Triumph of Art', visiting all four nations, and culminating in a spectacular one-day outdoor event in Trafalgar Square (26 July 2025). 

The visits to the Gallery in Trafalgar Square included 872,662 made to exhibitions which included the last month of opening of Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers (the most attended ticketed exhibition in the Gallery’s history), Siena: The Rise of Painting (1300–1350), Radical Harmony: Helene Kröller-Müller's Neo-Impressionists, José María Velasco: A View of Mexico and Wright of Derby: From the Shadows.

Of the 4,147,544 visits to the Gallery, there were 81,299 visits to the new Roden Centre for Creative Learning following its opening in March 2025, and of these 22,955 facilitated visits were made by school students and teachers.  

2,660 visits were made by students and teachers, alumni and partners to the Gallery and other venues engaged in the annual Articulation Prize. This is organised by the Gallery for those aged between 16 and 19 who deliver a 10-minute presentation to an audience about a work of art, architecture or an artefact in a museum or gallery setting. 

The Gallery’s digital and social media, including video content, online exhibitions, talks and courses, and visits to the website, attracted just over 107 million views from 1 January to 31 December 2025. These include 6.9 million engagements across Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, TikTok and YouTube; and 14.3 million visits made on the Gallery’s website in 2025.

The second year of the Gallery’s 200 Creators Network launched in October 2025 and, so far, content made by creators in the Network has generated on their own channels over 7 million views and 150,000 engagements, attracting new and hard-to-reach online audiences across the globe.

This social media network, launched for the Gallery’s Bicentenary, is the first of its kind in the sector, and has given digital content creators the chance to participate in the Gallery’s activities through exclusive events and access to the Gallery’s collection, exhibitions and behind-the-scenes work. As part of the programme, creators will be offered four paid commissions throughout the year to create new digital content related to the Gallery. The first two paid commissions will appear on the Gallery’s channels from April 2026.  

Sir Gabriele Finaldi, Director of the National Gallery, London, says: ‘The National Gallery continues to build on its founding principles of bringing people and great art together. Through our collection, our exhibitions in London and across the UK, many people have engaged with the Gallery. Our digital and social media platforms including online exhibitions and courses have brought us to an even bigger global audience. Following our NG200 celebrations and our newly transformed Sainsbury Wing, we now look forward this year to welcoming more even more visitors to our collection and our exhibitions which include Zurbarán, Renoir and Love and Van Eyck: The Portraits.’