V&A wins Art Fund Museum of the Year
£100,000 prize money to be spent on travelling exhibition initiative
London’s Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) is to revive a regional travelling exhibition initiative using the prize money from its Art Fund Museum of the Year victory.
The V&A’s Circulation Department sent touring exhibitions to museums and art schools around the UK until 1977, when the service ended following government cuts.
The V&A scooped the £100,000 Art Fund Museum of the Year award at a ceremony held last night at the Natural History Museum, London.
Martin Roth, the director of the V&A, made the announcement about the plan to revive the Circulation Department during his acceptance speech.
“The V&A experience is an unforgettable one,” said Stephen Deuchar, the director of the Art Fund.
“Its recent exhibitions from Alexander McQueen to The Fabric of India, and the opening of its new Europe 1600 – 1815 galleries, were all exceptional accomplishments – at once entertaining and challenging, rooted in contemporary scholarship, and designed to reach and affect the lives of a large and diverse national audience.”
The four other shortlisted museums were the Arnolfini, Bristol; Bethlem Museum of the Mind, London; Jupiter Artland, Edinburgh; and York Art Gallery.
The judges for Museum of the Year 2016 were Gus Casely-Hayford, curator and art historian; Will Gompertz, BBC arts editor; Ludmilla Jordanova, professor of history and visual culture, Durham University; Cornelia Parker, artist; and Deuchar.
Last year’s Art Fund Museum of the Year was Manchester’s Whitworth Art Gallery.
The V&A’s Circulation Department sent touring exhibitions to museums and art schools around the UK until 1977, when the service ended following government cuts.
The V&A scooped the £100,000 Art Fund Museum of the Year award at a ceremony held last night at the Natural History Museum, London.
Martin Roth, the director of the V&A, made the announcement about the plan to revive the Circulation Department during his acceptance speech.
“The V&A experience is an unforgettable one,” said Stephen Deuchar, the director of the Art Fund.
“Its recent exhibitions from Alexander McQueen to The Fabric of India, and the opening of its new Europe 1600 – 1815 galleries, were all exceptional accomplishments – at once entertaining and challenging, rooted in contemporary scholarship, and designed to reach and affect the lives of a large and diverse national audience.”
The four other shortlisted museums were the Arnolfini, Bristol; Bethlem Museum of the Mind, London; Jupiter Artland, Edinburgh; and York Art Gallery.
The judges for Museum of the Year 2016 were Gus Casely-Hayford, curator and art historian; Will Gompertz, BBC arts editor; Ludmilla Jordanova, professor of history and visual culture, Durham University; Cornelia Parker, artist; and Deuchar.
Last year’s Art Fund Museum of the Year was Manchester’s Whitworth Art Gallery.