The Art Fund Prize for Museum of the Year celebrates museums and galleries across the UK – annually awarding one outstanding winner £100,000.
Art Fund Prize for Museum of the Year 2013
Each year we celebrate the very best UK museums and galleries, rewarding and highlighting their innovation and creativity in bringing objects and collections to life. An independent panel of judges comes together to put the spotlight on museums battling it out for the Prize, and crown the winner Museum of the Year at a prestigious ceremony in London.
As well as the £100,000 for Museum of the Year we will also be awarding £10,000 for the Clore Award for Learning which recognises achievements in learning programmes in UK museums. Both winners will be drawn from the ten finalists which were announced on 2 April.
Previous Museum of the Year winners
Exeter’s Royal Albert Memorial Museum won the 2012 Art Fund Prize for its stunning £24 million transformation. Praised by the judges for its ‘ambition and imagination’, the museum has dramatically reinterpreted its display of over a million fascinating objects – from gemstones and taxidermy to medieaval coins and modern art.
In 2011 the British Museum was crowned winner for A History of the World, the innovative project that used individual objects to bring history to life for millions around the world. The British Museum used the £100,000 prize money to fund a spotlight tour of star objects.
The history of the Prize
The Museum Prize Trust was set up in 2001 to create a major annual prize for museums and galleries in the UK. Between 2003 and 2008 the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation was the principal funder and we have sponsored the prize since 2009. You can see a full list of the winners, nominated museums and judges from the past ten years below or browse through our gallery above.
