Yorkshire Sculpture Park named ‘Museum of the Year’

The prize recognises excellence in museum and gallery exhibition design and refurbishment completed in the previous year.

The shortlisted museums included The Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft  in East Sussex – which is dedicated to the work of Eric Gill and other craftspeople.

The other finalists were the Hayward Gallery, London; The Mary Rose Museum, Portsmouth; Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, Norwich and Tate Britain, London.

Yorkshire Sculpture Park was chosen as the winner for the restoration of its 18^th century chapel, and 2013 exhibitions including the Yinka Shonibare show and the installation of Roger Hiorns’ Seizure 2008/2013, a piece which saw Hiorns transform an empty council flat in Southwark, London, into ‘a sparkling blue environment of copper sulphate crystals’, says Yorkshire Sculpture Park, using 75,000 litres of liquid copper sulphate. It was moved to the park in May last year.

Art Fund director and chair of the judging panel Stephen Deuchar says, ‘A perfect fusion of art and landscape, the Yorkshire Sculpture Park has gone from modest beginning to one of the finest outdoor museums one might ever imagine.

‘In 2013 it really came of age – with art projects such as Yinka Shonibare’s extraordinary exhibition; the fruits of the expansion and consolidation of the landscape on both sides of the lake; and with the conversion of the chapel to house (as its inaugural exhibition) a major new work by Ai Weiwei’.