If you haven’t voted for the Art Fund Prize yet then you have only until the 18th of June to do so. You can vote at www.artfundprize.org.uk/2010/vote/ for one of the final four contenders. The prize, £100,000, will be awarded by the judges after the closing date and your vote will help to influence them. The 30th of June will be the date that the winner will be announced and we’ll let you know as soon as we can which is the lucky museum.
The final four museums (see CD-Traveller 25 May 2010 for more details) are the Ashmolean in Oxford, the Ulster Museum in Belfast, Blists Hill Victorian Town in Shropshire and the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum in Coventry.
Voting has been brisk over the last few weeks and the Art Fund website lets you see which museum is in the lead. As of now, that is the Ulster Museum which has gathered almost a third of all the votes. Blists Hill is not far behind and then there is the Ashmolean. If your favourite isn’t in the lead and you haven’t voted yet you know what you need to do. In the original voting that led to the shortlist Blists Hill was leading the Ulster Museum. Now it looks as though the supporters of the Ulster have come out in bigger numbers to lead the field.
Just recently, the Art Fund has helped the National Museum of Wales acquire a painting that had an export licence placed on it and placed 27 paintings from a major bequest. The 27 have been placed in museums throughout the country. The money the Art Fund provides from the 80,000 members and bequests goes into spreading some of our heritage throughout our countries. That way we can all enjoy it wherever we live.