# Museum of the Year

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". The award of £100,000 is Britain's biggest single art prize, and the largest single museum arts prize in the world. The prize and 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.

## History

The Museum of the Year was awarded by the British charity National Heritage from 1973 to 2000. In 2001, the Museum Prize Trust was established with the aim of creating a single award to replace this prize and three others awarded by the Museums Association, the Art Fund and the Campaign for Museums. The Gulbenkian Prize, as this was known, was first awarded in 2003. The prize's principal sponsor until 2007 was the Lisbon-based Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, but since 2008 it has been sponsored by the Art Fund. It adopted its current name in late 2012, 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". 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.

## List of winners and shortlisted entries
### National Heritage Museum of the Year (1973–2000)

| Year | Winner |
| 1973 | Museum of Lakeland Life & Industry, Kendal, Cumbria |
| 1974 | National Motor Museum, Beaulieu, Hampshire |
| 1975 | Weald and Downland Open Air Museum, Singleton, West Sussex |
| 1976 | Gladstone Pottery Museum, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire |
| 1977 | Ironbridge Gorge Museum, Telford, Shropshire |
| 1978 | Erddig Hall, Wrexham |
| 1978 | Museum of London |
| 1979 | Guernsey Museum and Art Gallery, Saint Peter Port |
| 1980 | Natural History Museum, London |
| 1981 | Hunday Farm Museum, Stocksfield, Northumberland |
| 1982 | Potteries Museum and Art Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire |
| 1983 | Ulster Folk and Transport Museum, Cultra, County Down |
| 1984 | Quarry Bank Mill, Styal, Cheshire |
| 1985 | Burrell Collection, Glasgow |
| 1986 | Beamish, The North of England Open Air Museum, County Durham |
| 1987 | Manchester Museum |
| 1988 | National Museum of Photography, Film and Television, Bradford, West Yorkshire |
| 1989 | National Portrait Gallery at Bodelwyddan Castle, Denbighshire |
| 1990 | Imperial War Museum, London |
| 1990 | Museum of Science & Industry, Manchester |
| 1991 | National Railway Museum, York |
| 1992 | Manx National Museum, Douglas |
| 1993 | Jersey Museum and Art Gallery, St Helier |
| 1993 | Jersey Maritime Museum, St Helier |
| 1994 | Tower Museum, Derry, County Londonderry |
| 1995 | Ryedale Folk Museum, Hutton-le-Hole, North Yorkshire |
| 1996 | Buckinghamshire County Museum, Aylesbury |
| 1996 | National Trust exhibition at Uppark, South Harting, West Sussex |
| 1997 | Waddesdon Manor, Buckinghamshire |
| 1998 | House of Manannan: Manx National Heritage, Peel |
| 1998 | Jersey Maritime Museum, St Helier |
| 1999 | River and Rowing Museum, Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire |
| 2000 | British Museum, London |

### Gulbenkian Prize (2003–2007)

| Year | Winner | Shortlisted |
| 2003 | National Centre for Citizenship, Galleries of Justice, Nottingham | Collections, Communities and Memories Community Project, Clifton Park Museum, Rotherham, South Yorkshire Darwin Centre Phase One, Natural History Museum, London RRS Discovery, Discovery Point, Dundee |
| 2004 | Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh | Museum of Antiquities, Newcastle upon Tyne Pembrokeshire Museum Service Norton Priory Museum, Runcorn, Cheshire |
| 2005 | Big Pit National Coal Museum, Blaenavon, Torfaen | Coventry Transport Museum Time and Tide Museum, Great Yarmouth, Norfolk Locomotion: the National Railway Museum at Shildon, County Durham |
| 2006 | SS Great Britain, Bristol | Hunterian Museum, Royal College of Surgeons, London The Collection: Art and Archeology, Lincolnshire Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield |
| 2007 | Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, West Sussex | Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow Kew Palace, London Weston Park Museum, Sheffield |

### Art Fund Prize (2008–2012)

| Year | Winner | Shortlisted |
| 2008 | The Lightbox, Woking, Surrey | Breaking the Chains, British Empire & Commonwealth Museum, Bristol Shetland Museum and Archives, Shetland Wellcome Collection, London |
| 2009 | Wedgwood Museum, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire | Centre of New Enlightenment, Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow Orleans House Gallery, Twickenham, London Ruthin Craft Centre: Centre for the Applied Arts, Denbighshire |
| 2010 | Ulster Museum, Belfast | Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford Blists Hill Victorian Town, Telford, Shropshire Herbert Art Gallery and Museum, Coventry |
| 2011 | A History of the World in 100 Objects, British Museum, London | Polar Museum, University of Cambridge Robert Burns Birthplace Museum, Alloway, Ayrshire Roman Baths Museum, Bath, Somerset |
| 2012 | Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter, Devon | The Hepworth Wakefield Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh Watts Gallery, Compton, Surrey |

### Art Fund Museum of the Year (2013–)

| Year | Winner | Shortlisted |
| 2013 | William Morris Gallery, Walthamstow, London | The Hepworth Wakefield, winner of the Clore Award for Learning Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, Tyne and Wear The Beaney, Canterbury, Kent Dulwich Picture Gallery, London Horniman Museum and Gardens, London Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge Narberth Museum, Pembrokeshire Preston Hall Museum and Park, Stockton-on-Tees, County Durham |
| 2014 | Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield | Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft, Ditchling, East Sussex Hayward Gallery, London Mary Rose Museum, Portsmouth, Hampshire Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, Norwich, Norfolk Tate Britain, London |
| 2015 | Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester | Dunham Massey Hall, Greater Manchester Imperial War Museum, London The MAC, Belfast Oxford University Museum of Natural History, Oxford Tower of London |
| 2016 | Victoria and Albert Museum, London | Arnolfini, Bristol Bethlem Museum of the Mind, Beckenham, London Jupiter Artland, Edinburgh York Art Gallery |
| 2017 | The Hepworth Wakefield | Lapworth Museum of Geology, Birmingham National Heritage Centre for Horseracing & Sporting Art, Newmarket, Suffolk Sir John Soane's Museum, London Tate Modern, London |
| 2018 | Tate St Ives | Brooklands Museum, Weybridge, Surrey Ferens Art Gallery, Kingston upon Hull Glasgow Women's Library The Postal Museum, London |
| 2019 | St Fagans National Museum of History, Cardiff | HMS Caroline, Belfast Nottingham Contemporary Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford V&A Dundee |
| 2020 | Aberdeen Art Gallery | — |
| 2020 | Gairloch Museum, Wester Ross | — |
| 2020 | Science Museum, London | — |
| 2020 | South London Gallery, Camberwell, London | — |
| 2020 | Towner Eastbourne | — |
| 2021 | Firstsite, Colchester | Centre for Contemporary Art, Derry Experience Barnsley Thackray Museum of Medicine, Leeds Timespan, Helmsdale |
| 2022 | Horniman Museum, London | Museum of Making, Derby People's History Museum, Manchester The Story Museum, Oxford Tŷ Pawb, Wrexham |
| 2023 | Burrell Collection, Glasgow | Leighton House, London The MAC, Belfast Natural History Museum, London Scapa Flow Museum, Stromness |
| 2024 | Young V&A, London | Craven Museum & Gallery, Skipton, North Yorkshire Dundee Contemporary Arts Manchester Museum National Portrait Gallery, London |