History buffs urged to back Great North Museum Art Fund bid

Mar 10 2010 The Journal

HISTORY buffs being urged to back a North museum’s bid to beat off competition from 10 rivals and clinch the UK’s biggest arts cash prize.

Staff at the Great North Museum in Newcastle were told last month they were in the running for the £100,000 Art Fund Prize.

Now they are going head-to-head with some of the country’s most popular attractions, including the Natural History Museum which has been selected for its new Darwin Centre and the National Army Museum which has been included for its Conflicts of Interest exhibition.

The cash award is the biggest single prize on offer to museums and galleries and is awarded to the venue which has demonstrated the most originality, imagination and excellence for its exhibitions.

Last night people from the North East were urged to log on and register their vote for the Tyneside museum.

Alec Coles, director of the Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums, said: “The Art Fund Prize is hugely important to us and it is great to see the Great North Museum on the longlist.

“I would suggest that the number of visitors per population is well above others in the country. It really shows the appetite for high quality museums in the North East.

“I think for too long we’ve always looked at the south and London for big national museums, but now people are looking up to us and that shows that we’ve got something totally excellent going on here.”