Art Fund, the UK’s national charity for art, has announced the five museums that have been selected as finalists for the Art Fund Museum of the Year 2024, the world’s largest museum prize.
The shortlisted museums include the Craven Museum in Skipton, embedded in the Skipton Town Hall cultural hub. It covers archaeology, textiles, fine art, literature, and social history from prehistory to the present. Dundee Contemporary Arts in Dundee is one of Scotland’s premier contemporary arts organisations, featuring two art galleries, a two-screen cinema, a print studio, and an award-winning learning programme.
Manchester Museum, which is over 130 years old, is home to around four and a half million objects from natural sciences and human cultures. The museum reopened in February 2023 following an extensive renovation.
The National Portrait Gallery in London tells the story of the United Kingdom through six centuries of portraiture, from global icons to local champions and national treasures to unsung heroes. The gallery reopened in June 2023 following a significant three-year transformation project.
Finally, the Young V&A – Victoria and Albert Museum in London, which will reopen in July 2023, was created for children and young people to spark creativity now and in the future, with spaces to imagine, play, and design.
Art Fund shortlists five museums annually for the Museum of the Year prize. The 2024 edition recognises inspiring projects from autumn 2022 through to winter 2023, with particular emphasis on community engagement, sustainable ways of working, and 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 on 10 July at the National Gallery in London and will receive a prize of £120,000. Each of the four other finalists will receive £15,000, bringing the total prize money to £180,000. The judging panel for 2024, chaired by Art Fund director Jenny Waldman, includes Anupam Ganguli, Finance Director at Historic Royal Palaces, Vick Hope, broadcaster, Tania Kovats, artist, and Sir John Leighton, former Director-General of National Galleries of Scotland. The judges will visit each finalist to inform their decision-making. At the same time, 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 of Art Fund, said, “The shortlisted museums for this year’s Art Fund Museum of the Year prize are shining examples of museums’ impact 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. I’m so pleased to see how they support and centre young people through their work. Across various sizes and scales, these organisations are all real leaders in their field. I urge everyone to go and visit these exceptional 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 collaborating with the BBC in 2024.