News & Press
Journalists should contact press@prm.ox.ac.uk for further details and images concerning the Museum, its collections, research projects, events and activities. Press Releases.
The Pitt Rivers Museum will remain open throughout 2013 via the normal entrance while there are the building works in the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.
Pitt Rivers Museum wins £1m Heritage Lottery Funding
We are delighted to announce we have received a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) for £1,049,400 towards our £1.6m project VERVE (Visitors, Engagement, Renewal, Visibility, Enrichment). Find out more about the VERVE project.
Conference Announcement – The Future of Ethnographic Museums at Pitt Rivers Museum and Keble College 19 – 21 July 2013
The conference will mark the completion of the five-year ‘Ethnography Museums and World Cultures’ (EMWC) project funded by the European Union, and involving ten major European ethnography Museums. The conference will be addressed by James Clifford (University of California at Santa Cruz) and other leading figures in the study of museums and anthropology. Further information and conference booking.
‘Excavating Pitt-Rivers’ Project
The Victorian archaeologist General Pitt-Rivers is world-famous for his development of modern scientific archaeology, but the earliest archaeological collections that he made have never been studied. The Pitt Rivers Museum, where these artefacts are held, has been awarded £76,654 by Arts Council England’s Designation Development Fund to document this important early material. Press Release | 'Excavating Pitt-Rivers' Project blog
Small Blessings - Amulets at the Pitt Rivers website launched August 2012
Explore these curious objects from Adrien de Mortillet's amulet collection and discover the intriguing stories behind them. Go to the Small blessings - Amulets at the Pitt Rivers website
Composer residency
We are delighted to announce that Sound and Music has awarded Nathaniel Robin Mann a joint residency with Pitt Rivers Museum and Oxford Contemporary Music (OCM) through their ‘Embedded’ programme.
Renewal of HEFCE ‘core funding’ to the Pitt Rivers Museum for 2012-13.
The Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) has announced that it has renewed its core funding award to the Museum of £725,000 for the academic year 2012-3. ‘Core funding’ is HEFCE’s competitive funding stream for university museums.
Michael O’Hanlon, the Museum’s Director, said “In the difficult financial circumstances that face us all, it is tremendous that HEFCE has been able to renew this funding for a further year. ‘Core funding’ is just what it says on the tin. It is the Museum’s single largest source of support and underpins both stewardship of the collections, and the teaching and research use made of them nationally and internationally ”.
Renaissance Major Grant from Arts Council England – 2012 to 2015
The Pitt Rivers Museum as part of an Oxford University and Oxfordshire County Museums consortium has been awarded a Renaissance ‘Major Grant’ from Arts Council England (ACE). Further details
Light Fantastic wins funding from DCMS/Wolfson
The Pitt Rivers Museum is delighted to announce an award of £91,700 from DCMS/Wolfson Museums and Galleries Improvement Fund towards improving lighting in the galleries. Find out more about this project.
VERVE (Visitors, Engagement, Renewal, Visibility, Enrichment) wins Heritage Lottery Fund support
The Pitt Rivers, Oxford University’s museum of anthropology and world archaeology, has received initial support from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) for VERVE, a major re-display and outreach project providing vital conservation and redisplay within the Museum’s galleries, alongside a wide-ranging programme of public activities. Read more about this project.
Small Blessings: Animating the Pitt Rivers’ Amulet Collection - February to September 2012
The Pitt Rivers Museum is delighted to announce an award of £70,000 from the Designation Development Fund (DDF), administered by Arts Council England (ACE). Find out more about the Small Blessings project.
Ames Anthropology Award - December 2011
The Council for Museum Anthropology of the American Anthropological Association has jointly awarded the 2011 Michael M. Ames Prize for Innovative Museum Anthropology to Dr. Laura Peers (Curator of the Americas, Pitt Rivers Museum and Reader in Material Anthropology, University of Oxford), Dr. Alison K. Brown (Lecturer, Department of Anthropology, University of Aberdeen), and Ms. Heather Richardson (Head of Conservation, Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford), for their collaborative ‘Blackfoot Shirts Project’ which brings together historic collections in the United Kingdom with Blackfoot people in Canada and the United States. (download the Ames Antrhopology Award Press Release)
Reel to Real: Giving the Pitt Rivers Museum’s Sound Collections a Voice, 2012-13
£78,212 grant from the Esmée Fairbairn Collections Fund, via the Museums Association. Find out more about the Reel to Real project.
Conservation Fellowship for research into Captain Cook’s Collections, 2012-13
The Clothworkers’ Foundation has awarded an £80,000 Conservation Fellowship to Jeremy Uden, Senior Conservator at the Museum, for research into objects collected on the first and second voyages of Captain Cook to the Pacific. Learn about Conservation fellowship project.
Arms and Armour Collections website launch, July 2011
In this Virtual Gallery you can explore over 200 highlights from the arms and armour collections at the Pitt Rivers Museum. Go the Arms and Armour website.
Clore Award for Museum Learning, 2011
Pitt Rivers Museum and the Oxford University Museum of Natural History have won the inaugural £10,000 Clore Award for Museum Learning for its project with local primary schools. Read more about the Clore Award for Museum Learning.
Globalization, Photography, and Race: the Circulation and Return of Aboriginal Photographs in Europe, 2011-15
The Pitt Rivers Museum is pleased to announce its collaboration on a major new Australian Research Council-funded project, which brings together research on photograph collections in Oxford, Cambridge, Paris and Leiden, to explore the global circulation of photographs of Australian Aboriginal people that began in the 1840s. Read more about the project.
Keeping Heritage Alive!, 2011-12
The University of Oxford's Museums and Botanic Gardens are delighted to announce that they have been awarded a grant of more than £400,000 from The Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) to fund placements for people seeking training as education officers in the heritage sector. The grant is part of the HLF Skills for the Future programme and will provide 18-month training placements for 12 trainees offering experience in working with collections, volunteer management and using new media and technology. For more information on the programme: http://www.ox.ac.uk/media/news_stories/2010/100608.html
Body Art Collections website launch, April 2011
This website is the starting point for exploring the Body Art collections at the Pitt Rivers Museum. Go to The Body Arts website.
Ruskin College collaboration
Providing ongoing opportunities in the Museum for student volunteers from Ruskin College. Learn more about the Ruskin programme.
Pictures worth a thousand words: Developing a digital image bank at the Pitt Rivers Museum, 2011-12
The Museum is delighted to announce the award of £91,410 from the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation to develop a digital image bank at the Museum.
The funding will be used to devise a methodology for adding images to the on-line collections records, and a management system for those images; to scan and digitise the Museumʼs non- digitised images and to deposit them in the digital ʻimage bankʼ; and to add to the ʻbankʼ existing digital images. Press release (download)
Queen's Anniversary Prize for museums, libraries and archives, 2010-14
Oxford University's museums, libraries and archives have been awarded the prestigious Queen's Anniversary Prize in recognition of their outstanding quality and their high public benefit. Michael O'Hanlon, Director of the Pitt Rivers, said: 'The Museum is delighted to have been part of the submission accorded this high honour. Opening Gates, the title of the prize submission, is exactly what our own recent project to restore the Museum's entrance has done, contributing to a doubling of numbers of visitors since our re-opening on May 1st 2009.' Read more about the award (external site)
Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage (ADACH) Thesiger Project, 2010–11
The Museum is pleased to announce the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding with ADACH in 2010 that will enable further close collaboration on the study of the Thesiger collection, building on the earlier generous support of the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan. This ADACH-sponsored project focuses on photographs taken in the United Arab Emirates by the renowned traveller, writer and photographer Sir Wilfred Thesiger in the 1940s.
Major HEFCE award to the Pitt Rivers Museum, 2010-11
The Higher Education Funding Council for England has just announced that it has awarded the Museum £725,000 for the year 2010-11, from its competitive ‘core funding’ stream for university museums. The award will continue for five years, subject to any reductions that may follow the next spending review.
Shields, Spears and Samurai......Upper Gallery re-opening 1 May 2010
The Upper Gallery of the Pitt Rivers Museum is once again open to visitors following the recent Heritage Lottery Fund redevelopment completed in 2009. The principal new feature in the reopened gallery is the extensive firearms display, reuniting this important part of the Museum's collection with the existing arms and armour displays.
