Photo by Patrick Gries.  Article by Clifford Pugh

When it comes to art, impressionist painters are usually the biggest crowd pleasers at museums around the world. But at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, an exhibition of hyperrealistic creations of everyday people by London-based Australian sculptor Ron Mueck has turned into a runaway hit.

The exhibition of the lifelike figures made of resin, silicone, and other materials — some oversized and others much smaller — has captivated large crowds since opening in late February in the museum’s Audrey Jones Beck Building. With a few weeks to go before it closes on August 13, Mueck’s work has attracted nearly 108,000 visitors, making it already the MFAH’s most popular exhibition of all time.

“Ron Mueck is on track to be our most popular exhibition ever and we’ve had some of the biggest days ever at the beginning,” MFAH director Gary Tinterow tells CultureMap. “And what’s especially satisfying is the exhibition is strongly appealing to college students. We’ve had the largest proportion of college students attend that exhibition than any other. And also nonmembers. So it means we’re reaching a new audience and that’s what we hope to do.”

Tinterow chuckles when asked if he thought the Mueck exhibition would be this popular. In fact, he did, he says, since an exhibition of Mueck’s work drew more than 1 million visitors at the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain in Paris four years ago and has drawn large crowds in museums around the world since then.

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