Eleven curators will battle it out in a dash for a lucrative new addition to their collection after The Art Fund and the Crafts Council announced the shortlist for Art Fund Collect, their annual £75,000 competition challenging experts to find a gem in 60 minutes.
The experts will be given an hour to pick one item from Collect, the Council's international contemporary art fair at London's Saatchi Gallery in May.
Entering before private buyers and VIP guests, their selections will be debated by a panel of judges, who will allow worthy choices to be entirely paid for with the prize pot.
The Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art will be hoping to complete a hat-trick of wins, having secured a towering £25,000 vase by Julian Stair in 2008 and a £29,000 bracelet by Italian goldsmith Giovanni Corvaja (above) last year.
Aberdeen Art Gallery, which emerged with the £27,000, 18-carat gold Neckpiece by Umbrian jeweller Jacqueline Ryan in 2009, and the revamped Ashmolean Museum in Oxford also won through from 21 applicants.
Aberdeen Art Gallery curator Kate Gillespie will be hoping to repeat the Gallery's success in earning Neckpiece (2009) by Jacqueline Ryan (£26,550) last year
Ceramist Edmund de Waal, Art Fund Director Stephen Deuchar, Council boss Rosy Greenlees, former Council Chair Sir Nicholas Goodison and Art Fund Trustee Jonathan Marsden will form the judging panel, who will pick the winners at the private view of the fair on May 13.
Full shortlist:
Aberdeen Art Gallery
Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter
The Shipley Art Gallery, Gateshead
Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool
Manchester Art Gallery
Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester
MIMA, Middlesbrough
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery
Harris Museum, Preston
York Art Gallery
Photos © Mark Crick
