The award gives £300,000 to ‘rising star’ curators to build collections for their museums.
This latest round of funding included a specific prize for a curator to buy pre-1600 collections for their museum which was won by Yorkshire Museum’s curator Lucy Creighton.
Stephen Deuchar, Art Fund director, said: “An important part of being a curator today is drawing out the potential of their museums’ collections and considering how best to develop them in new ways. The New Collecting Awards gives the opportunity to diversify institutions’ holdings, bringing benefit to a widening range of audiences and helping our museums to thrive.”
The awards were funded by donations from individuals and trusts including the Wolfson Foundation, the Ruddock Foundation for the Arts, the Coral Samuel Charitable Trust and the Vivmar Foundation.
The full list of 2019 winners:
- £50,000 to Lucy Creighton, curator of archaeology, Yorkshire Museum, to diversify and strengthen the museum’s collection of pre-1600 archaeology and numismatics
- £25,000 to Ben Miller, assistant curator of ceramics at The Potteries Museum & Art Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent, to build a collection exploring the 300-year history of north Staffordshire ceramics created for and used by the hospitality industry
- £80,000 to Tania Moore, curator at Sainsbury Centre, Norwich, to acquire sculptors’ drawings and works on paper by international women artists
- £40,000 to Louise Boyd, Japan Foundation assistant curator at the National Museums Scotland in Edinburgh, to acquire a number of ehon (Japanese woodblock-printed illustrated books)
- £38,600 to Uthra Rajgopal, assistant curator (textiles and wallpaper) at the Whitworth, University of Manchester, to develop the gallery’s collection of south Asian textile artworks by female artists
- £30,000 to Emily Riddle, assistant curator at The Hepworth Wakefield, to collect post-war ceramics by artists associated with the Central School of Arts and Crafts
- £35,000 to research and collect examples of digital design to Natalie Kane, curator of digital design at the V&A in London, to research and collect examples of digital design
