diff --git a/galleries/users_explain/text/fonts.py b/galleries/users_explain/text/fonts.py
index eed783a7aa38..232e25983a67 100644
--- a/galleries/users_explain/text/fonts.py
+++ b/galleries/users_explain/text/fonts.py
@@ -196,6 +196,33 @@
 Each glyph of the string is rendered using the first font in the list that
 contains that glyph.
 
+Loading new fonts
+-----------------
+
+All fonts that are installed in your system will become available to the
+`.FontManager`, as well as the default fonts that ship with Matplotlib. The latter
+fonts are located in the directory ``'matplotlib\mpl-data\fonts\ttf'``.
+It is also possible to add fonts to this directory, or to `allocate a custom
+directory
+<https://matplotlib.org/stable/api/font_manager_api.html#matplotlib.font_manager.findSystemFonts>`_
+that contains any fonts you wish to add to the `.FontManager`.
+
+In either case, the `.FontManager` will only find the new fonts after the font cache
+has been rebuilt following their addition . You may need to rebuild the cache
+yourself if your new fonts cannot be found by Matplotlib.
+The cache can be rebuilt by using :func:`matplotlib.font_manager.load_fontmanager`::
+    import matplotlib as mpl
+    mpl.font_manager.load_fontmanager(try_read_cache=False)
+
+Alternatively, you can expose the location of your font cache using
+:func:`matplotlib.get_cachedir`::
+    import matplotlib as mpl
+    mpl.get_cachedir()
+    '/home/darren/.cache/matplotlib'
+
+You can then manually delete the cache file ``'fontlist<version>.json'``. The new fonts
+will be available the next time the script is run.
+
 A majority of this work was done by Aitik Gupta supported by Google Summer of
 Code 2021.
 """
diff --git a/lib/matplotlib/font_manager.py b/lib/matplotlib/font_manager.py
index e7be2203bc12..13d3735aa77a 100644
--- a/lib/matplotlib/font_manager.py
+++ b/lib/matplotlib/font_manager.py
@@ -1456,10 +1456,10 @@ def _findfont_cached(self, prop, fontext, directory, fallback_to_default,
             if rebuild_if_missing:
                 _log.info(
                     'findfont: Found a missing font file.  Rebuilding cache.')
-                new_fm = _load_fontmanager(try_read_cache=False)
+                new_fm = load_fontmanager(try_read_cache=False)
                 # Replace self by the new fontmanager, because users may have
                 # a reference to this specific instance.
-                # TODO: _load_fontmanager should really be (used by) a method
+                # TODO: load_fontmanager should really be (used by) a method
                 # modifying the instance in place.
                 vars(self).update(vars(new_fm))
                 return self.findfont(
@@ -1558,7 +1558,10 @@ def get_font(font_filepaths, hinting_factor=None):
     )
 
 
-def _load_fontmanager(*, try_read_cache=True):
+def load_fontmanager(*, try_read_cache=True):
+    """
+    Re-loads the font cache by generating a new `.FontManager` instance.
+    """
     fm_path = Path(
         mpl.get_cachedir(), f"fontlist-v{FontManager.__version__}.json")
     if try_read_cache:
@@ -1576,6 +1579,6 @@ def _load_fontmanager(*, try_read_cache=True):
     return fm
 
 
-fontManager = _load_fontmanager()
+fontManager = load_fontmanager()
 findfont = fontManager.findfont
 get_font_names = fontManager.get_font_names
diff --git a/lib/matplotlib/font_manager.pyi b/lib/matplotlib/font_manager.pyi
index 92b78ae2212d..96d33fecfc0e 100644
--- a/lib/matplotlib/font_manager.pyi
+++ b/lib/matplotlib/font_manager.pyi
@@ -129,3 +129,4 @@ def findfont(
     rebuild_if_missing: bool = ...,
 ) -> str: ...
 def get_font_names() -> list[str]: ...
+def load_fontmanager(try_read_cache: bool = ...) -> FontManager: ...