It’s been a difficult few years for Britain’s museums. Forced to close their doors because of Covid-19, they then had to adjust to a new landscape, all while the arts and culture budget was slashed at like a piñata by the government. It makes the Art Fund Museum of the Year prize feel like a chance to take a breather and reflect.
This year’s winner will take home £120,000 and be announced in a ceremony at the British Museum on 12 July, with the four runners-up each receiving £15,000. The nominees are: Scapa Flow, a remote body of water in Orkney, Scotland, which once housed Vikings and, during both world wars, the British naval fleet, and which has been transformed into a museum to document the human stories that unfurled there; Glasgow’s Burrell Collection, which reopened this spring after a six-year, £68.25m refurbishment; the Natural History Museum, filled with precious wonders of the natural world, and a rite of passage for schoolchildren on trips; Belfast’s Mac, a theatre and exhibition venue that has given space for a new generation of Northern Irish artists to find their voice; and Leighton House in London, once the opulent abode of legendary painter Frederic Leighton.
“From transformational redevelopment to community involvement to addressing the major issues of today, the shortlisted museums may operate at very different scales, but all show astonishing ambition and boundless creativity,” says Art Fund director Jenny Waldman of the five nominees. Ahead of the winner being crowned, we spoke to a famous fan of each nominated museum, who picked their favourite exhibit.
Girl on Bicycle by Joseph Crawhall – the Burrell Collection, Glasgow
Because the Burrell Collection is in the middle of a park, it feels more like going on a breezy countryside stroll than to an art exhibition. Whenever I visited as a little boy I always went away feeling inspired.
Girl on Bicycle is a beautiful watercolour of a girl cycling with her little doggy through a garden, by an underappreciated Scottish artist called Joseph Crawhall. It was actually his sister Beatrice on the bike, with the family dachshund, Fritz, trying desperately to keep up. It’s a little intimate hand sketch; not necessarily something you would see in a bold frame. But it is a piece that, on so many different fronts, represents the thrill of that particular moment in history.
Crawhall was part of the Glasgow Boys, an art collective looking for a push into a more modern world. They embraced changing ideas around suffrage and women’s roles in society. Rather than focus on landscapes, they chose to capture modern life as it rolled out in front of them. Girl on Bicycle, then, is full of humour and genuine reflection. It represents women’s changing roles in society, the zest of Glaswegian humour, and the bold leap Scots were taking in the late 19th century towards this new kind of world. Lachlan Goudie, artist, writer and broadcaster
The Permanent Present by Mark Garry – the Mac, Belfast
No matter how many times you walk in, The Permanent Present never ceases to amaze. It is a sculpture made up of 400 metal wires that hangs in the foyer of the Mac. Depending on the time of day and how much light there is outside, it changes in colour and picks up a different nuance.
You see the school kids coming inside in their community groups: they all look up and are astonished. I think the fact it has so many vibrant colours suggests a Belfast where everyone looks after one another and – on days when it is raining – it takes some of the grey out of people’s mornings. It represents constant change, which feels especially real, because Belfast has always been at the heart of change. It also carries this togetherness, through all the colours working in tandem, and it shows how art can bring a community together.
As a city we feel small; that’s just my opinion. We are very self-deprecating. But when you look at The Permanent Present, it might inspire you to start making art yourself. It carries a truth this city needs. Tara Lynne O’Neill, actor and playwright
The Pumphouse – Scapa Flow Museum, Orkney
On 21 June 1919, shortly after the end of the first world war, the whole German naval fleet in was deliberately sunk in one afternoon at Scapa Flow. In 1939, during the second world war, the HMS Royal Oak, which had been docked there, was torpedoed by a German submarine and 835 of the crew were killed. It is a place where a lot of great British boats left for war, many of them never returning, and this history means that the beautiful natural landscape in Orkney carries a strange mix of glory and eeriness.
The museum’s Pumphouse is incredible. I’m fascinated by all of the Victorian machinery, which transports you back to this world of dials, analogue measuring, pipes and incredibly long switches and gaskets. It shows the toil of the young lads inside the boats, who kept the war effort alive. It gives you a poignant glimpse into how exhausting it would have been and an era where this little corner of Orkney was the beating heart of the world’s naval strength. Dan Snow, historian
The Great Auk – the Natural History Museum, London
I remember walking into the Natural History Museum on a school trip in the 1960s and being instantly mesmerised by the grandiose symmetry of the building. It was like a cathedral of knowledge; yet beyond all of the dinosaurs I rushed over to, it was the Great Auk that left the deepest impression. In adult life, I even got a fake Great Auk commissioned by a taxidermist.
It is an extraordinary animal, which we didn’t get a chance to know. We were robbed of it because of people’s greed. Before going to the Natural History Museum, the Auk was just something in a book, but on display it becomes so much more tangible. You can smell it and it is in touchable distance, which means you start to properly process what the world lost by forcing such a beautiful creature into extinction.
Whenever I look at the Great Auk I remember being a little boy and those first moments where I fell in love with nature and science. The sad thing is there will be more Great Auks in my lifetime; popular species that just completely disappear. Seeing it is a powerful reminder of just how vulnerable our natural world is. Chris Packham, naturalist and BBC Spring Watch presenter
Flaming June by Frederic Leighton – Leighton House, Holland Park
To understand the wow factor of Frederic Leighton’s oil paintings, you have to see where they were created. If I were able to choose one place in London to live, I would choose Leighton House because it’s like stepping into this sumptuously exotic painting. From the Arab tiles to the fountain, George Aitchison designed this living, breathing fantasy of gloriousness for Leighton. It’s a place where you can truly let go, and I think this peace of mind is reflected all over Flaming June.
I love the otherworldly orange glow and just how relaxed the girl looks. A colour study of the painting has returned to the restored Leighton House, so now visitors can truly appreciate how the vibrancy of Flaming June is really just an extension of its home. She’s so elegant – all girls can look at the painting and instantly imagine being her. That is a beautiful thing for me. The painting tells you to slow down and take a second to breathe. Pattie Boyd, model and photographer
This article was amended on 10 July; the only colour colour study of Flaming June is on show at Leighton House, not the painting itself which is in the Museo de Arte de Ponce, Puerto Rico.
