Whitworth Art Gallery, Exhibition Space

A £15 million development has transformed the gallery, doubling it in size and creating new spaces that embrace the park it calls home.

Yet although the Whitworth is about to open a new chapter in its history, the organisation itself has a much broader story to tell.

You'll be able to find out about that story here, alongside information about our research projects, our wonderful historic collection, the Friends of the Whitworth, the people who work here and much more.

On 1 July, at a prestigious ceremony at Tate Modern, the gallery was awarded the Art Fund Prize for Museum of the Year 2015. It’s the largest arts award in Britain and the biggest museum prize in the world.

It is awarded to the museum or gallery in the UK that is judged to have best demonstrated excellence, innovation and imagination. We reopened on 14 February, but while we were closed we did all we could to remain “open”, with pop-up projects all over the city and beyond, maintaining links to our existing audiences and building new ones. Since reopening, our new building has enabled us to undertake larger and more ambitious projects, presentations and exhibitions, and we hope we have realised our potential as a major UK cultural destination.