And the winner is....
Wedgwood Museum
… the Wedgwood Museum. The results of the Art Fund Prize for museums were announced on 18 June
This prestigious £100,000 prize was hotly contested by four shortlisted Museums – Ruthin Craft Centre, Orleans House Gallery, Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum and Wedgwood Museum – but it was the later which scooped the prize. The museum, which only re-opened last October after a huge re-vamp and re-design, is housed in a new state-of-the-art building designed by architects Hulme Upright Manning next door to Josiah Wedgwood’s eponymous ceramics manufactory in Stoke-on-Trent. It tells the story of the company using ceramics (including a collection of original trial pieces), archive material, models, factory equipment and computer displays. There are also some non-Wedgwood pieces at the museum, including collections of Susie Cooper, Coalport and Mason’s ceramics.
The judges particularly liked the way the museum manages to pull the many strands of Wedgwood’s history together – taking visitors on a 250-year tour of British social, design and industrial history as well as providing a strong local context. And the public obviously feel the same as the museum also won the People’s Choice Poll – 27,000 voted online with the majority choosing the Wedgwood Museum. The win comes as a great shot in the arm for the area with the Ceramics Biennial opening in October.
www.artfund.org
