Posted Monday, October 15, 2012 --- 8:00 a.m.

MILWAUKEE (AP) -- The Milwaukee Art Museum just had one of its best years in terms of attendance.

Museum officials say they had the third highest attendance ever for the 2012 fiscal year, which ended Aug. 31. More than 395,000 visitors entered the galleries.

It's behind 2002 and 2003, when the Santiago Calatrava-designed addition opened. Attendance was at 540,000 and 480,000 in 2002 and 2003, respectively.

Museum director Daniel Keegan credited the boost partly to several feature exhibitions. Those include "Impressionism: Masterworks on Paper," "Accidental Genius: Art from the Anthony Petullo Collection" and "Posters of Paris: Toulouse-Lautrec and His Contemporaries."

He says free admission on the first Thursday of each month also helped.

Copyright 2012. The Associated Press.