10 million reasons why Tate Modern is a repeat success

Attendances at Tate Modern in London have topped 10 million, with more and more visitors coming back for a second look, a gallery spokes-woman said yesterday.

The enormous success of the revamped power station on the banks of the Thames has contributed to making the Tate group of galleries – with St Ives, Liverpool and the original Tate Britain – the most popular free cultural attractions in the UK after Blackpool Pleasure Beach.

Tate Modern, which features art from after 1900, is now considerably more popular than The Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Guggenheim in Bilbao, which have barely a fifth of the visitor numbers. Only the Pompadou Centre in Paris is comparable.

The displays are changed regularly. Exhibitions on surrealism and the current Matisse-Picasso blockbuster have also proved magnets. Forty per cent of visitors were under 35, more than 22,000 children attended free workshops and 12,000 teachers had training by curators.