Nov 17, 2006  |  By: KATHERINE VOLIN  | COMMENTS     

Living in the District is a dream come true for art lovers. Not only are the museums world-class and diverse, but most of them are free. And now Baltimore is now taking a page from D.C.’s book.

Thanks in part to grants from Baltimore City and Baltimore County, the Baltimore Museum of Art and the Walters Art Museum, the city’s best-known and largest museums, are now offering free admission.

Since Oct. 1, when the museums first abandoned admission fees, attendance has soared.

“It’s two and a half times the attendance [of] the same period last year,” says Gary Vikan, director of the Walters. “I can’t say that will continue and I doubt it will, but initially, the response has been really positive.”

The same success has been true for the Baltimore Museum of Art, which attracted 14,000 visitors during October, equal to attendance for the museum’s popular exhibit last year, “Monet’s London,” according to Anne Mannix, the museum’s director of communications. Overall, October saw a 34 percent attendance increase over previous monthly attendance.

Mannix and Vikan say they’ve already noticed a more diverse crowd. Vikan also says patrons of the museum now tend to be more casually dressed.

“They’re not all kind of dressed up and spiffy,” Vikan says. “They don’t look like the Metropolitan Museum crowd, which is great.”

Both museums are well known for their permanent collections and the touring shows they host. The Baltimore Museum of Art includes a sculpture garden, African art exhibits and European and American painting collections, and the upcoming shows include an exhibition of French Impressionist painter Camille Pisarro’s works. Of course, the museum is also known for its modern art collection, with an unrivaled array of Henri Matisse’s works in the vaunted Cone Collection.

The Walters Art Museum has an impressive collection of ancient world art from Egypt to the Americas, and it also houses one of the nation’s best-regarded collections of Medieval art.

THE CHANGE IN PATRONAGE has inspired the curators to adjust their thinking about the daily function of the museums.

“It invites you to reexamine everything you do, and I think that’s a very healthy thing to do,” Vikan says. “It’s one thing to be free and another thing to provide programs, and exhibitions and events that are welcoming and make people want to be here.”

Both museums have altered their evening events. The Walters stays open until 8 p.m. every Friday, and now has its younger employees plan the night’s events. Vikan says free admission has changed not just who comes to the museum, but how they come.

“By being free, we can be a drop-in destination, and I like that,” Vikan says. “We’ve become a greater asset to the immediate neighborhood.”

The Walters is located in the gay-popular Mt. Vernon neighborhood.

“By turning this over to young people who live in this neighborhood that are part of the neighborhood, we’re hoping to connect to the spirit of the neighborhood,” Vikan says about the Friday evening events.

THE BALTIMORE MUSEUM of Art previously offered free admission the first Thursday of every month, but now that admission is always free, they’ve targeted the Thursday night events, previously directed at families, toward younger adults. The new Thursday nights include a series of multi-media events — special guided museum tours, musical performances and independent films selected by a museum staff member.

“Many of the films … picked are not available at Blockbuster or even on Netflix,” Mannix says. “Here’s a great opportunity to see things you couldn’t see on a big screen and in 35 mm format and for free. The response to that has been very positive.”

In December, the museum will show  “Le Cercle Rouge,” a French heist movie from 1970, and in January the museum will screen “Basic Training,” a 1971 documentary on an Army training center during the Vietnam War.

The Walters also showed a film during its opening weekend of free admission. Gay favorite “Rocky Horror Picture Show” played to a lively and full audience.

“It was packed and it was fracas and it was fun and it went on until 12:30-1 a.m.,” Vikan says. “We had a couple of Elvises and cross-dressers, and it was very kind of freewheeling. This is a place for everybody, and we can take it with humor.”

The free admission policy has certainly brought a loosened-up feel to the museum.

“The staff loves the energized attendance, the humor, the unpredictability, the not-quite-so-buttoned-down-ness, whatever you want to call it,” Vikan says.