London's National Portrait Gallery and Young V&A nominated for the Museum of the Year prize

The National Portrait Gallery and Young V&A are among the five nominees for the world’s largest museum prize.

The two London cultural hotspots are in the running for the Art Fund Museum of the Year 2024, which has a winning prize of £120,000.

They will be up against the Craven Museum in North Yorkshire, Dundee Contemporary Arts and the Manchester Museum.

Jenny Waldman, director of the Art Fund and chair of the judges, said the shortlisted museums “are shining examples of the impact museums are making locally and nationally. Each of our finalists truly has something for everyone and all have community at the very heart of their programming.”

Both London museums have transformed in the past year. The NPG reopened in the summer of 2023 following its most significant overhaul since 1896 – comprising a major refurbishment of the building and a complete redisplay of its collection.

In the six months since the gallery reopened it has welcomed close to 1.2 million visitors through the doors.

Meanwhile, Young V&A opened in July following a £13m transformation of the former V&A Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green.

The brief was to create “the world’s most joyful museum” and designed with young people, it has three galleries (titled Play, Imagine and Design) and some 2,000 toys and objects from world history are on display. Following its opening, more than 590,000 have visited.

The Museum of the Year prize was first awarded in 2013, going to the William Morris Gallery in London. The other sites in the capital to win the prize were the V&A in 2016 and the Horniman Museum and Gardens in 2022.