Dali Pompidou exhibition beats all attendance records ... except his own

A massive 790,090 people visited the Salvador Dali exhibition at Paris’s Pompidou Centre, which closed on Monday night after a four-month run. The Spanish surrealists beat Henri Matisse, Wassily Kandinsky and Edward Hopper in total visits … but he didn’t beat his own record.

The “triumphal success”, as the museum called it, saw an average 7,315 people a day visit the show and beat Fauve master Matisse - total visits 734,896 in 1993 - and the first abstractionist, Kandinsky - total visits 702,905 in 2009.

It also beat the US’s Hopper, this winter's other blockbuster also at the Pompidou. 

The Hopper 10 October-2 February show scored 784,269 visits, although Dali did have the advantage of a longer run, 21 November-25 March.

But Dali did not beat himself ... his 1979 exhibition at the Pompidou notched up 840,662 visits.

Organisers of this year’s show say they expected this to be the case because today’s security restrictions mean fewer people are allowed to enter at the same time.

To satisfy the surrealism-hungry masses, the Pompidou Centre’s management kept the doors open until 11.00pm every day, except Tuesday when the gallery closes, and packed in an extra 48,550 visitors in the last 24 days by staying open 24 hours a day.

The Dali exhibition now travels on to Madrid’s Reina Sofia museum.

There are not likely to be any challengers in the current season's exhibitions in Paris, which feature a notable lack of big-name solo shows.