There has been a sharp drop in public support for government funding of the arts, new research shows.

Twenty per cent fewer Australians support public arts funding than eight years ago, according to a national survey from the Australia Council, the federal government's major arts funding and advisory body.

It comes despite strong opposition to cuts to the Australia Council under former federal arts minister George Brandis in 2015 (much of which has since been restored), the fallout from which was still beingcontinued to be felt across the sector at the time the survey was collated.

In 2009, when the first National Arts Participation Survey was carried out, 85 per cent of respondents said they supported government funding of the arts. But in 2016, just 66 per cent supported public arts funding, with one in four ambivalent on the question. A further 10 per cent actively opposed government arts funding – twice as many as in 2009.