Museums Sheffield was created in 1998 as an independent charity to take over the running of the city’s non-industrial museums and galleries from Sheffield City Council.

Our first major project was the launch of the newly-built Millennium Gallery in 2001, a cornerstone of Sheffield’s Heart of the City regeneration project.  The Millennium Gallery set the tone for our work over the following decade; fundraising for and delivering major improvement projects to enhance the city’s galleries and museums. 

Major successes have included:

• Becoming lead partner of the Yorkshire Museums Hub and negotiating key partnerships with national museums and galleries
• The £19m redevelopment of Weston Park museum, culminating in nomination for the Gulbenkian Prize and winning the Guardian Family Friendly Museum Award 2008
• Achieving ‘Designated Collection’ status from the Department of Culture, Media & Sport for the city’s unique metalwork collection
• Fundraising for the acquisition of significant artworks and historic objects for the city, including the Bill Brown cutlery collection and The Kiss by Marc Quinn
• Fundraising for largescale refurbishments and redisplays of the Graves Gallery and Ruskin Collection
• Winning the Contemporary Art Society annual award in 2010 to commission Czech artist Katerina Seda to create a new artwork, Lisen Profile
• Welcoming over a million visitors annually across all sites

 Find out more about our work by reading our recent annual reviews

As we look to the future, it’s clear that museums and galleries across the country face tough economic challenges in the coming years.  We hope to meet these challenges head on, and will continue to champion the culture which now forms an essential part of the life of our great city.