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[June 2009]
Wedgwood Museum Wins £100,000 Art Fund Prize
As a museum less than a year old one of the world's most famous pottery brands is soaring, after winning the UK's most financially lucrative arts prize.
The Wedgwood Museum in Barlaston, Staffordshire, has just been awarded the £100,000 Art Fund prize for museums and galleries at a ceremony in central London. The result is even more impressive because the building, which tells Wedgwood's story via original ceramics, manuscripts, factory equipment and models, only opened last October, after nine years of planning and fundraising.
The judges, chaired by the film producer peer David Puttnam, were unanimous, collectively declaring themselves "bowled over" by their visit to the potteries. Puttnam said the judging meeting had been a happy one. "I went round the table once and it became absolutely clear who was going to win, so we then just concentrated on the whys”.
The Wedgwood Museum was extraordinary, he said. "The museum is an apotheosis of commerce, design, manufacturing, creativity. If you want an object lesson in the triumph and tragedy of British manufacturing, it is a brilliant snapshot of what has gone right and what has gone wrong”.
This year the judges also included the Turner prize-winning artist Grayson Perry, the mathematician Marcus du Sautoy and Robert Crawford, former director general of the Imperial War Museum.
ENDS