Museum celebrating Eric Gill up for £100k Art Fund Prize

Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft

The Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft in East Sussex is one of the six finalists for its Museum of the Year prize, which recognises the best UK museums, focusing on activity that took place last year.

Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft branding

Also named as the finalists are the Hayward Gallery, London; The Mary Rose Museum, Portsmouth; Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, Norwich; Tate Britain, London; and Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield.

Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft

The Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft reopened in September last year, with new branding by Phil Baines and interiors designed by Adam Richards Architects. 

The new branding was informed by the museum’s history in the art and craft community founded by Eric Gill, with the main identity taking a typographic approach that can be used in four different formats.

The Mary Rose Museum

The new Mary Rose Museum opened in Portsmouth in May last year, with building design by Wilkinson Eyre architects, exhibition work by Land Design Studio and interiors by Pringle Brandon. 

A new visitor attraction was been designed around the hulk of the 500-year-old Tudor warship the Mary Rose.

Source: Hélène Binet

Lower-level rotunda, Tate Britain – Courtesy Caruso St John and Tate

Tate Britain reopened fully in November last year, following a £45 million refurbishment led by Caruso St John.

The shortlist was selected by an independent panel of judges including Sally Bacon, director of the Clore Duffield Foundation; Michael Craig-Martin RA, artist; Wim Pijbes director of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam; and Anna Somers Cocks, chief executive of The Art Newspaper.

The panel is chaired by Art Fund director, Stephen Deuchar.  

The winner will be announced at a ceremony at the National Gallery in London on Wednesday 9 July 2014.

Last year’s winner was the William Morris Gallery, Walthamstow, London.