All England shortlist revealed for Art Fund Museum of the Year 2026
- maxwell museums
- 31 minutes ago
- 5 min read
The National Gallery and V&A East Storehouse are among the leading contenders for Art Fund Museum of the Year 2026, the world’s largest prize for museums and galleries.
The two London institutions are part of an all-England shortlist for the annual award. It’s the first time since 2017 Art Fund’s Museum of the Year contenders have not included any venues from Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland.
The recently restored Norwich Castle, Cambridge’s Fitzwilliam Museum and The Box in Plymouth are also on the shortlist.
The winner of the prestigious title will be announced at a glitzy ceremony at London’s Cutty Sark — part of National Museums Greenwich — on 25 June.
The 2026 judging panel is made up of Tony Butler OBE, Executive Director of Derby Museums, artist Yinka Ilori MBE, broadcaster and history influencer Alice Loxton and TV icon June Sarpong OBE. The panel is chaired by Art Fund Director Jenny Waldman. The judges will visit each of the finalists to inform their decision-making over the coming weeks.
Speaking on behalf of the judges, Waldman said that this year’s nominees “showcase the extraordinary creativity and innovation that make museums such vibrant and essential places.
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“We are thrilled to celebrate their achievements as finalists for Art Fund Museum of the Year, thanks to our National Art Pass members who make the prize possible. We hope people everywhere will be inspired to explore the finalists and their local museums, to see firsthand the treasures and experiences that are open to everyone.”
The 2026 winner will take the baton from last year’s victor, Beamish, The Living Museum of the North. Other recent winners include Young V&A (in 2024), The Burrell Collection in Glasgow (2023) and the Horniman Museum and Gardens (2022).
The 5 shortlisted museums for Art Fund Museum of the Year 2026
The Box
Opened in Plymouth in September 2020 as a museum, gallery and archive following a £48m capital investment, The Box preserves the city’s cultural collections of more than 2 million artworks, objects, specimens, and archival materials. It’s welcomed over 1.1 million visits in its first five years of operation, and it commissioned research that said its creation generated over £100 million in health and wellbeing benefits, and that it's boosted Plymouth’s economy by £244m since opening.
The Fitzwilliam Museum
Part of the University of Cambridge and founded in 1816 for ‘the pursuit of learning’, the Fitzwilliam Museum is home to an extraordinary collection of works of art and material culture primarily from Europe, North Africa and Asia. Recent years have seen a redisplay of its painting galleries and record-breaking visitor numbers. Over half a million people came through the doors in 2024 for the first time.
The National Gallery
Across 2024 and 2025 the National Gallery celebrated its Bicentenary with an ambitious programme that encompassed an entire rehang of the gallery’s collection, and many public events. Its blockbuster Van Gogh: Poets & Lovers exhibition became the institution’s most popular ticketed exhibition ever, with 334,589 visits. It also reopened a revamped Sainsbury Wing, and sent twelve of its masterpieces to temporary exhibitions at venues across the UK.
Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery
Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery comprises a medieval Castle Keep, and a museum. Following a major £27.5 million redevelopment, the Keep reopened in August 2025 with rooms reinstated and furnished to recreate a sense of life in the twelfth century. A permanent Gallery of Medieval Life — created in partnership with the British Museum — was also unveiled, and features over one thousand objects. The Keep is now also fully accessible across all five floors for the first time.
V&A East Storehouse
V&A East Storehouse invites visitors behind the scenes to wander amongst half a million museum objects on open display. Housed inside the former Media Centre of the London 2012 Olympic Games in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in Stratford, it will celebrate its first anniversary on 31 May 2026. Over half a million people have visited since opening, far exceeding expectations. It’s Order an Object service where members of the public can request to see any collection items has to date seen over 38,000 objects requested.
Who will win? My verdict on the Art Fund runners and riders
The huge success of V&A East Storehouse — unveiled to rave reviews and visitor numbers far beyond early targets — means it must be the frontrunner to lift the Art Fund trophy.
But the biggest obstacle might be its sister venue. The second of the V&A’s new pair of East London venues — V&A East Museum — opened just last week. It's a much more ambitious venue on most counts, from the fact the building was created from scratch to the collaborative nature of its curation. Like the Lord of the Rings trilogy at the 2004 Oscars, I can see a world in which the judges wait until the final installment to honour a multi-part endeavor.
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The National Gallery has done phenomenal work for its 200th anniversary. From the complete rehang of its collection, to a genuinely vast programme of projects and events across the entire UK, it is staggering what it managed to achieve across a year (give or take). It would ordinarily get my vote...yes, there's a but coming.
But, I don’t think you can crown any venue Britain’s best museum at the same time a major black hole has appeared in its finances. The National Gallery’s nomination for Art Fund’s award comes just weeks after it completed a large programme of redundancies as part of plans to plug an £8m deficit. Financial resilience must surely be the number one priority of any museum, so I cannot see how the judges can reward one that’s so recently had to shed so many staff to make its sums add up.
They may be underdogs, but I think both the Fitzwilliam and The Box have the best chance of clinching the title from the big-beast V&A. They can both point to strong evidence of success in broadening their audiences, and innovations in the day-to-day work of museums. The fact they are both civic spaces outside London will only help.
We shall see. Watch this space — and go visit them all. 🟦