The 2024 Museum of the Year award features museums in Skipton, Dundee, Manchester, and London, with three of the five shortlisted institutions having recently undergone major renovations. The winning museum will receive 120,000, while the other four finalists will each receive 15,000. The shortlist, announced by Art Fund, focuses on community engagement, sustainable practices, and reinvention. The National Portrait Gallery, Manchester Museum, and Young V&A are contenders for the award, showcasing extensive renovations and innovative partnerships. The prize recognises projects open to the public from autumn 2022 to winter 2023.
Manchester Museum is a museum displaying works of archaeology, anthropology and natural history and is owned by the University of Manchester, in England. Sited on Oxford Road (A34) at the heart of the university's group of neo-Gothic buildings, it provides access to about 4.5 million items from every continent. It is the UK's largest university museum and serves both as a major visitor attraction and as a resource for academic research and teaching. It has around 430,000 visitors each year.
The Victoria and Albert Museum (abbreviated V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and named after Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.The V&A is located in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, in an area known as "Albertopolis" because of its association with Prince Albert, the Albert Memorial, and the major cultural institutions with which he was associated. These include the Natural History Museum, the Science Museum, the Royal Albert Hall and Imperial College London. The museum is a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. As with other national British museums, entrance is free.The V&A covers 12.5 acres (5.1 ha) and 145 galleries. Its collection spans 5,000 years of art, from ancient history to the present day, from the cultures of Europe, North America, Asia and North Africa. However, the art of antiquity in most areas is not collected. The holdings of ceramics, glass, textiles, costumes, silver, ironwork, jewellery, furniture, medieval objects, sculpture, prints and printmaking, drawings and photographs are among the largest and most comprehensive in the world.The museum owns the world's largest collection of post-classical sculpture, with the holdings of Italian Renaissance items being the largest outside Italy. The departments of Asia include art from South Asia, China, Japan, Korea and the Islamic world. The East Asian collections are among the best in Europe, with particular strengths in ceramics and metalwork, while the Islamic collection is amongst the largest in the Western world. Overall, it is one of the largest museums in the world.Since 2001 the museum has embarked on a major £150m renovation programme. The new European galleries for the 17th century and the 18th century were opened on 9 December 2015. These restored the original Aston Webb interiors and host the European collections 1600–1815. The Young V&A in east London is a branch of the museum, and a new branch in London – V&A East – is being planned. The first V&A museum outside London, V&A Dundee opened on 15 September 2018.
Manchester Jewish Museum occupies the former Spanish and Portuguese synagogue and an adjacent building on Cheetham Hill Road in Manchester, England. It is a grade II* listed building.The synagogue was completed in 1874 but the building became redundant through the migration of the Jewish population away from the Cheetham area further north to Prestwich and Whitefield. It re-opened as a museum in March 1984 telling the story of the history of Jewish settlement in Manchester and its community over the last 200 years.The museum reopened on 2 July 2021 following a £6 million redevelopment and extension. The museum includes a new gallery, vegetarian café, shop and learning studio and kitchen, as well as complete restoration of the Spanish and Portuguese synagogue.Following completion of the renovation works, Manchester Jewish Museum won two awards at the annual British Construction Industry Awards (Cultural and Leisure Project of the Year and Best Small Project of the Year) alongside architects Citizens Design Bureau and structural engineers Buro Happold.The museum holds over 31,000 items in its collection, documenting the story of Jewish migration and settlement in Manchester. It includes over 530 oral history testimonies, over 20,000 photographs, 138 recorded interviews with Holocaust survivors and refugees and other objects, documents and ephemera.
Art Fund (formerly the National Art Collections Fund) is an independent membership-based British charity, which raises funds to aid the acquisition of artworks for the nation. It gives grants and acts as a channel for many gifts and bequests, as well as lobbying on behalf of museums and galleries and their users. It relies on members' subscriptions and public donations for funds and does not receive funding from the government or the National Lottery.Since its foundation in 1903 the Fund has been involved in the acquisition of over 860,000 works of art of every kind, including many of the most famous objects in British public collections, such as Velázquez's Rokeby Venus in the National Gallery, Picasso's Weeping Woman in the Tate collection, the Anglo-Saxon Staffordshire Hoard in Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and the medieval Canterbury Astrolabe Quadrant in the British Museum.
Young V&A, formerly the V&A Museum of Childhood, is a branch of the Victoria and Albert Museum (the "V&A"), which is the United Kingdom's national museum of applied arts. It is in Bethnal Green in the East End of London, and specialises in objects by and for children.
The Science and Industry Museum in Manchester, England, traces the development of science, technology and industry with emphasis on the city's achievements in these fields. The museum is part of the Science Museum Group, a non-departmental public body of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, having merged with the National Science Museum in 2012.There are extensive displays on the theme of transport (cars, railway locomotives and rolling stock), power (water, electricity, steam and gas engines), Manchester's sewerage and sanitation, textiles, communications and computing.The museum is an Anchor Point of the European Route of Industrial Heritage and is on the site of the world's first passenger railway station – Manchester Liverpool Road – which opened as part of the Liverpool & Manchester Railway in 1830. The railway station frontage and 1830 warehouse are both Grade I listed.
The University of Manchester is a public research university in Manchester, England. The main campus is south of Manchester City Centre on Oxford Road. The university owns and operates major cultural assets such as the Manchester Museum, The Whitworth art gallery, the John Rylands Library, the Tabley House Collection and the Jodrell Bank Observatory – a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The University of Manchester is considered a red brick university, a product of the civic university movement of the late 19th century. The current University of Manchester was formed in 2004 following the merger of the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) and the Victoria University of Manchester. This followed a century of the two institutions working closely with one another.The University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology had its origins in the Mechanics' Institute, which was founded in 1824. The present University of Manchester considers this date, which is also the date of foundation of the Royal School of Medicine and Surgery, one of the predecessor institutions of the Victoria University of Manchester, as its official foundation year, as indicated in its crest and logo. The founders of the institute believed that all professions somewhat relied on scientific principles. As such, the institute taught working individuals branches of science applicable to their existing occupations. They believed that the practical application of science would encourage innovation and advancements within those trades and professions. The Victoria University of Manchester was founded in 1851, as Owens College. Academic research undertaken by the university was published via the Manchester University Press from 1904.Manchester is the third-largest university in the United Kingdom by total enrolment and receives over 92,000 undergraduate applications per year, making it the most popular university in the UK by volume of applications. The University of Manchester is a member of the Russell Group, the N8 Group, and the US-based Universities Research Association. The University of Manchester, inclusive of its predecessor institutions, has had 25 Nobel laureates amongst its past and present students and staff, the fourth-highest number of any single university in the United Kingdom.
The National Portrait Gallery (NPG) is a historic art museum between 7th, 9th, F, and G Streets NW in Washington, D.C., United States. Founded in 1962 and opened in 1968, it is part of the Smithsonian Institution. Its collections focus on images of famous Americans. Along with the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the museum is housed in the historic Old Patent Office Building.
The National Portrait Gallery (NPG) is an art gallery in London that houses a collection of portraits of historically important and famous British people. When it opened in 1856, it was arguably the first national public gallery in the world that was dedicated to portraits.The gallery moved in 1896 to its current site at St Martin's Place, off Trafalgar Square, and adjoining the National Gallery. The National Portrait Gallery also has regional outposts at Beningbrough Hall in Yorkshire and Montacute House in Somerset. It is unconnected to the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh, with which its remit overlaps. The gallery is a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.
Outset Contemporary Art Fund is an arts charity established in 2003, and based in London, England. The charity was the first organisation to utilise cross-institution collective patronage to fund artistic projects in the UK. It has raised over £13 million for arts institutions, exhibitions, education, residency programmes, initiatives, publications and capital campaigns. Outset describes itself as “powered by inspiration, driven by expertise, renowned for its engagement, and focused on effective energy and ideas, with a commitment to being there at the outset of impactful change”. Outset is headquartered in the UK with franchised chapters in Germany, Switzerland, India, Israel, the Netherlands, Greece, and Estonia.
The Leeds Art Fund (LAF), formerly the Leeds Art Collections Fund (LACF) is one of Britain's oldest supporting art gallery "friends" organisations. It was founded in Leeds on 11 November 1912 by Frank Rutter, who was the newly appointed curator of Leeds Art Gallery (then Leeds City Art Gallery) at the time, with the support of the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Leeds, Michael Sadler. The LACF was established to encourage the visual arts in Leeds and, most importantly, to provide a source of funding that was independent of the municipality for the purchase of contemporary and historic works of art and design for the people of Leeds. Other founding members and sponsors included Sydney Kitson (1871–1937), a well-known local architect and collector, and Frank Harris Fulford, director of the family firm C. E. Fulford Limited, which manufactured Bile Beans.Today, most of the LAF's work is channelled through the Leeds City Art Galleries. Through subscriptions and fund-raising events the LAF has helped to enrich the visual life of Leeds by making purchases of art works for display in Leeds at the Leeds City Art Gallery, Temple Newsam House and Lotherton Hall. The LAF has, since its inception, purchased art works, often buying art works outright as part of the LAF collection, but also by supporting the purchase of art works through a contribution to the full purchase price. The LACF has also been the recipient of many generous bequests and donations of art works over the years. The art works belonging to the LAF are too numerous to mention in full, but include works by Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, Walter Sickert, Pierre Auguste Renoir, Patrick Heron, Alexander Calder, Francis Bacon, Andy Warhol, Stanley Spencer, Terry Frost and Thomas Hearne.The LAF has also contributed towards the acquisition of many artworks on display in Leeds Museums and Galleries, including by such well-known names as Thomas Chippendale, J. M. W. Turner, John Sell Cotman, John Atkinson Grimshaw, Stass Paraskos, Paula Rego, Bridget Riley, Grayson Perry and Auguste Rodin.The LAF has also supported various educational and publishing activities associated with the visual arts in Leeds, and continues to do so, not only at the Leeds City Art Galleries, but other visual art centres in Leeds, including the University of Leeds Art Gallery and East Street Arts (Vitrine project).The LAF is an independent registered charity (Registered Charity Number 529300), but it maintains close links with Leeds City Council, and with other organisations with an interest in the artistic life of Leeds, including the University of Leeds, East Street Arts, the Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society and local businesses.
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