Museum of the Year

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File:Whitworth Gallery extension (16967657572).jpg

The 2015 extension to the Whitworth Art Gallery, for which it was awarded that year's Museum of the Year prize

The Museum of the Year Award, formerly known as the Gulbenkian Prize and the Art Fund Prize, is an annual prize awarded to a museum or gallery in the United Kingdom for a "track record of imagination, innovation and excellence". A single award of £100,000, Britain's biggest single art prize,^[1] is presented to a museum or gallery, large or small, anywhere in the UK, whose entry, in the opinion of the judges, best demonstrates a track record of imagination, innovation and excellence through work mainly undertaken during the previous calendar year.^[2]

The Museum Prize Trust was established to create an annual prize for museums in Britain in 2001.^[3] The first prize, at that time known as the Gulbenkian Prize, was awarded in 2003.^[2] The principal sponsor from 2003 to 2007 was the Lisbon-based Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, but since 2008 the prize has been sponsored by The Art Fund.^[4] It was given its current name in late 2012,^[5] and the first award under the new name was given in 2013. Since 2011 the Clore Award for Museum Learning, worth £10,000 and sponsored by the Clore Duffield Foundation, has been awarded for "quality museum and gallery learning with children and young people (from early years up to the age of 25) in any setting, in or out of school or college".^[6] For its first two years this award had a separate shortlist but in 2013 it was awarded to an institution on the Museum of the Year shortlist, which had expanded from four to ten finalists.^[3]

List of winners and shortlisted entries

Gulbenkian Prize (2003–2007)

2003

National Centre for Citizenship, Galleries of Justice, Nottingham, winner^[7]
Collections, Communities and Memories Community Project Clifton Park Museum, Rotherham
Darwin Centre Phase One, Natural History Museum, London
RRS Discovery, Discovery Point, Dundee^[8]

2004

Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, winner^[9]
Museum of Antiquities, Newcastle upon Tyne
Pembrokeshire Museum Service
Norton Priory Museum, Runcorn^[10]

2005

Big Pit National Coal Museum, Blaenavon, Torfaen, winner^[11]
Coventry Transport Museum
Time and Tide Museum, Great Yarmouth
Locomotion: the National Railway Museum at Shildon, County Durham^[12]

2006

SS Great Britain, Bristol, winner^[13]
Hunterian Museum, Royal College of Surgeons, London
The Collection: Art and Archeology, Lincolnshire
Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield^[14]

2007

Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, West Sussex, winner^[15]
Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow
Kew Palace, Historic Royal Palaces, London
Weston Park Museum, Sheffield^[16]

Art Fund Prize (2008–2012)

2008

The Lightbox, Woking, winner^[17]
Breaking the Chains, British Empire & Commonwealth Museum, Bristol
Shetland Museum and Archives, Shetland
Wellcome Collection, London^[18]

2009

Wedgwood Museum, Stoke-on-Trent, winner^[19]
Centre of New Enlightenment at the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow
Orleans House Gallery, Twickenham, London
Ruthin Craft Centre: Centre for the Applied Arts, Denbighshire^[20]

2010

Ulster Museum, Belfast, winner^[21]
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Blists Hill Victorian Town, Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust
Herbert Art Gallery and Museum, Coventry^[18]

2011

A History of the World in 100 Objects, British Museum, London, winner^[22]
Polar Museum, University of Cambridge
Robert Burns Birthplace Museum, Alloway
Roman Baths Museum, Bath^[23]

2012

Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter, winner^[24]
The Hepworth Wakefield
Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh
Watts Gallery, Compton, Surrey^[25]