Tate St Ives wins Museum of the Year
Cornwall gallery heads five-strong shortlist
Tate St Ives is the Art Fund Museum of the Year 2018, it was announced at a ceremony at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) last week.
The Cornwall gallery won the £100,000 prize ahead of four others on the shortlist: Brooklands Museum in Weybridge, Surrey; Ferens Art Gallery, Hull; Glasgow Women’s Library; and the Postal Museum, London.
Tate St Ives reopened in October 2017 following a £20m redevelopment by Jamie Fobert Architects.
Tate St Ives, copyright Marc Atkins
The judges for Art Fund Museum of the Year 2018 were: Ian Blatchford, director of the Science Museum Group; Stephen Deuchar, director, Art Fund (chair); Rebecca Jones, BBC arts correspondent; Melanie Manchot, artist; and Monisha Shah, an independent media consultant and Art Fund trustee.
“Tate St Ives tells the story of the artists who have lived and worked in Cornwall in an international context,” Deuchar said. “The new extension to the gallery is deeply intelligent and breathtakingly beautiful, providing the perfect stage for a curatorial programme that is at once adventurous, inclusive and provocative.”
Tate St Ives, copyright Rebecca Warren
Art Fund Museum of the Year winners over the past seven years were Hepworth Wakefield (2017); V&A (2016); the Whitworth (2015); Yorkshire Sculpture Park (2014); William Morris Gallery (2013); Royal Albert Memorial Museum (2012); and the British Museum (2011).