Photo: © David Parry
Art Fund, the UK’s national charity for art, today announced the five museums selected as finalists for Art Fund Museum of the Year 2024, the world’s largest museum prize.
The shortlisted museums are:
Craven Museum (Skipton, North Yorkshire) – embedded in Skipton Town Hall cultural hub, the museum covers archaeology, textiles, fine art, literature and social history from pre-history to present day.
Dundee Contemporary Arts (Dundee) – one of Scotland’s foremost contemporary arts organisations featuring two art galleries, a two-screen cinema, a print studio and award-winning learning programme.
Manchester Museum (Manchester) – over 130 years old and home to around four and a half million objects from natural sciences and human cultures, Manchester Museum reopened in February 2023 following an extensive renovation.
National Portrait Gallery (London) – the NPG tells the story of the United Kingdom through six centuries of portraiture, from global icons to local champions, national treasures to unsung heroes. The Gallery reopened in June 2023 following a major three-year transformation project.
Young V&A – Victoria and Albert Museum (London) – reopening in July 2023, the museum (formerly the V&A Museum of Childhood) was created with and for children and young people, to spark creativity now and for the future, with spaces to imagine, play and design.
Art Fund annually shortlists five outstanding museums for Museum of the Year. The 2024 edition recognises inspiring projects from autumn 2022 through to winter 2023, with audiences and communities at their heart – with a particular focus on community engagement, sustainable ways of working, and demonstration of ambition by reinventing what it means to be ‘the best’ museum for the audiences of today and tomorrow.
The winning museum will be announced at a ceremony at the National Gallery in London on 10 July and will receive £120,000. £15,000 will be given to each of the four other finalists – bringing the total prize money to £180,000.
The 2024 judging panel, chaired by Art Fund director Jenny Waldman, includes: Anupam Ganguli (Finance Director, Historic Royal Palaces), Vick Hope (broadcaster), Tania Kovats (artist) and Sir John Leighton (former Director-General, National Galleries of Scotland). The judges will visit each of the finalists to inform their decision-making, while each museum will make the most of being shortlisted over the summer through events and activities for new and current visitors.
Speaking on behalf of the judges, Jenny Waldman, Director, Art Fund said:
“The shortlisted museums for this year’s Art Fund Museum of the Year prize are shining examples of the impact museums are making locally and nationally. Each of our finalists truly has something for everyone and all have community at the very heart of their programming. Their commitment to innovative partnerships whilst operating within an extremely challenging funding environment is incredible, and I’m so pleased to see the way they support and centre young people through their work. Across a wide range of size and scale, these organisations are all real leaders in their field. I urge everyone to go and visit these extremely special spaces.”
The prize is funded thanks to the generosity of Art Fund’s members who buy a National Art Pass. Art Pass holders enjoy discounts and benefits at the shortlisted museums and hundreds more across the UK.
Art Fund Museum of the Year continues its collaboration with the BBC in 2024.
Shortlisted Museums
Craven Museum (Skipton, North Yorkshire) Craven Museum is embedded in the Grade II listed Skipton Town Hall, a modern multi-arts cultural hub on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales. The venue also includes an exhibition gallery, historic concert hall, education, and community spaces which all work in unison with the museum to enrich and expand the cultural experiences on offer. The museum is focused on the local area – spanning pre-history to contemporary in areas as diverse as archaeology, textiles, fine art, literature, social history, and more – the museum has something for everyone.
The museum was recognised as the Kids in Museums Family Friendly Museum 2023 and Best Accessible Museum 2023. It was judged one of the top 3 museums for access provision out of over 2,000 UK museums and heritage sites. Craven Museum programmed free or low-cost activities or events every day of the 2023 school holidays for families, in recognition of the current cost of living crisis.
Between 2022-2023, 115 artists displayed work in the museum’s exhibition gallery, and 8 community groups created displays in the community cases. The museum welcomed 156,391 visitors in the 2022-23 period, an increase of roughly 56,000 visitors compared to the same period the previous year.
Dundee Contemporary Arts (Dundee) Dundee Contemporary Art (DCA) is one of Scotland’s foremost contemporary arts organisations. DCA’s mission is to enable audiences, artists, and participants to see, experience and create through its four programme areas: exhibitions, cinema, print studio and learning. In 2024, DCA celebrate 25 years of bringing the best in contemporary art to Dundee.
From autumn 2022 to winter 2023 DCA showcased five artists in its galleries: Matthew Arthur Williams, Saoirse Amira Anis, Zineb Sedira, Rachel Eulena Williams and Michelle Williams Gamaker. These exhibitions spanned painting, sculpture, moving image and installation, and featured artists and themes that reflect the diversity of the visual arts and the museum’s audiences, particularly focusing on lost or hidden histories, uncovered archives and generational memory.
In June 2023, DCA was the lead partner on Art Night Dundee, a major contemporary art festival held outside of London for the first time. Art Night Dundee welcomed over 15,000 visitors from across the UK, delivered 10 commissions and 12 projects with local collectives, worked across 35 sites, employed 168 people, and had an estimated economic impact of £394,800 in Dundee.
Manchester Museum (Manchester) Manchester Museum, part of The University of Manchester, is one of the largest university museums in the UK. Over 130 years old, it is home to around four and a half million objects from natural sciences and human cultures. It has always been a place for research and learning and remains a critical part of the city’s research infrastructure today.
Built on values of inclusion, imagination and care, the Museum has undergone a transformation designed to bring communities together and build understanding between cultures. As part of this, a £15 million capital project, ‘hello future’, was completed in February 2023. The project included new galleries, partnerships, visitor facilities, sector-leading programming and collections practice and digital innovation.
Visitor numbers for 18 February 2023 to 10 January 2024 were up 103% on 2019/20, with 57% of visitors new to Manchester Museum. All of this is on top of the world-leading conservation work done through its vivarium, home to a collection of live amphibians and reptiles including many critically endangered species and has contributed significantly to the University of Manchester’s performance against UN Sustainable Development Goals, where it ranks second among universities globally.
National Portrait Gallery (London) Founded in 1856, the National Portrait Gallery tells the story of the United Kingdom through portraits, using art to bring history to life and explore living today. From global icons to unsung heroes, the Collection is filled with the stories of those that have shaped, and continue to shape a nation. The Gallery offers encounters with some of the world’s greatest and most exciting new artists, promoting engagement with portraiture in all media to a wide-ranging public by conserving, growing and sharing the world’s largest collection of portraits.
In summer 2023, the new National Portrait Gallery reopened after its most significant transformation since 1896, comprising a complete redisplay of its Collection and a major refurbishment of its building. This included the creation of new public spaces, a more welcoming visitor entrance and a state-of-the-art Learning Centre. While its doors were closed, the Gallery initiated a programme of innovative nationwide partnerships with museums, local groups and schools, as well as an international touring programme, collectively reaching 1.6m people to date.
Now open to the public, the NPG has significantly increased the number of portraits on display, with over 50 new acquisitions and commissions exhibited across historic and contemporary galleries. Presenting a more inclusive and dynamic picture of the people who have contributed to the UK’s rich history, 48% of the portraits in the post-1900 galleries are of women (up from 35%), 11% of all works on display are portraits of UK ethnic minority sitters (up from 3%), and 7% of exhibited portraits feature sitters from the LGBTQI+ community (up from 4%). In the six months since reopening, the Gallery has welcomed 1.2m visitors – including 37,000 more families and 76,000 more visitors with a disability compared to pre-closure – and its online audience has doubled with 4.5m web visits since April 2023. Over 11,000 schoolchildren visited the Gallery during the summer term alone in 2023, representing a 200% increase in visits compared to pre-closure.
Photo: © Luke Hayes
Young V&A – Victoria and Albert Museum (London) Young V&A is a museum sparking creativity now and for the future. Created with children from early years to early teens, it is a place for young people to imagine, play and design, and get inspired by almost 2000 toys, characters, objects and artworks on display from around the world and across history. Rooted in its local community with 150-year heritage as East London’s first museum, Young V&A strives to energise young creators as well as empower everyone to promote creativity now and for the next generation and support the teaching of art and design education for all.
Young V&A opened on 1 July 2023 following a £13 million capital project to transform the former V&A Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green into a trail-blazing museum of creativity with a brief from the museum’s young co-designers to create ‘the world’s most joyful museum’. Young V&A offers three active, innovative permanent galleries (Play, Imagine and Design); a dynamic temporary exhibition space; beautifully restored Grade II listed architectural features; improved retail and café spaces; new accessible routes and facilities, including an accredited Changing Places Toilet (the first and only in Tower Hamlets); and an enhanced and expanded Clore Learning Centre and Creative Studios.
Following opening, Young V&A received overwhelming positive critical acclaim for its ambitious approach to child-centred museum experiences and thoughtful consideration of audience needs. Young V&A welcomed a remarkable 590,376 people since opening to the end of March 2024 – a 223% increase on the V&A Museum of Childhood’s figures for the same period in 2019/20 – demonstrating Young V&A’s significant appeal.
