The Royal Museums of Fine Arts (RMFAB) welcomed 705,450 visitors in 2024. They remain the country's leading museums with their 4 museums spread over 3 geographical areas of Brussels: Magritte Museum, Wiertz Museum, Meunier Museum and Old Masters Museum.
Visits to the Magritte and Old Masters museums continues to be a must for visiting tourists and Belgians alike. Despite the closure of the Fin-de-siècle museum (on 08/01/024), the visitor’s figures of the other museums are stable or rising.
The quality of the activities’ programme, the reputation of the institution and the dynamism of the collections may explain this figure, as well as the centenary celebrations of Surrealism. To mark the occasion, the Royal Museums of Fine Arts pulled out all the stops and hosted IMAGINE!100 Years of International Surrealism, an international exhibition conceived in close collaboration with the Centre Pompidou (Paris) and soon to be hosted by the Fundación Mapfré, the Hamburger Kunsthalle and the Philadelphia Museum of Art (USA).
2025 is shaping up to be a year of transition: no new in situ exhibitions on the programme, buta complete and gradual overhaul of the permanent collections of the Old Masters Museum(main building, rue de la Régence). The aim is to re-create a journey from the 15th to the 21st century, which will mark the return of artworks from the 19th to the 21st century to the visitor's journey through the main building.
This year will also be a year of preparation for work on the new exhibition spaces in the "Extensions" building situated at the Place du Musée. In 2026, the federal Building Agency (Régie des Bâtiments) plans to renovate the entrance hall, the two upper floors of exhibition rooms and the roof of the "Extensions" building, which is currently inaccessible to the public.
Main Image: Main entrance to the Old Masters and Magritte Museums, Photo, Kristof Vadino
Anna Melnykova, "Palace of Labor (palats praci), architector I. Pretro, 1916", shot with analog Canon camera, 35 mm Fuji film in March 2022.
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