Art Fund Prize 2012 longlist includes Turner Contemporary, Hepworth Wakefield, the Scottish National Portrait Galleries, and seven others
Glasgow’s Riverside Museum of Transport, The Hepworth Wakefield, and Margate’s Turner Contemporary are among 10 museums and galleries to be included on the longlist for the Art Fund Prize – the £100,000 award for the Britain’s best museums and galleries.
The longlist will be reduced to a shortlist of four on May 14, with a winner then being announced being announced at the British Museum on June 19. Lord Smith of Finsbury, the Chair of the Judges, said of the longlist: ‘Whittling the achievements of Britain’s museums over the past year down to a list of ten was an unbelievably challenging task’: ‘The outstanding quality of the projects that we finally settled on, however, perfectly encapsulates the vitality and dynamism of a part of our nation’s cultural life that continues to innovate, push boundaries and engage the public, even in these straitened times.’
Other included institutions include Bristol’s huge new riverfront M Shed, the Royal Albert Memorial Museum in Exeter, Bath’s Holburne Museum, the Watts Gallery in Guildford, and the re-opened Scottish National Portrait Gallery and the National Museum of Scotland.
Victoria Pomery, the Director at the widely acclaimed new Turner Contemporary in Margate, said organisers that the gallery was ‘absolutely thrilled’ to have been nominated: ‘We’ve had an amazing first year with many thousands of visitors enjoying the gallery, programme and Margate’. ‘The great news today continues to demonstrate what an impact Turner Contemporary is having. We are delighted’, she added.
The initial list of venues hoping to win the £10,000 Clore Award for Museum Learning has also been revealed, ranging from Discovery Days run by Jersey Heritage to the Stories of the World project at London’s Geffrye Museum.
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