The Museum Shop of the Hermitage wins the Museum Shop Award 2020
On October 25, 2021, Harmke Schipper, manager of the museum shop of the Hermitage, received the museum shop prize 2020 from Frans Klein. Since 2015, Frans Klein, designer and art historian, has been organizing accessible museum shopping days for Dutch and Belgian museums.
The inspiration for this is the British organization ACE, Association for Cultural Enterprises, which organizes trade days and workshops to professionalize the museum shops. Awards are also handed out at their annual 2-day conference. In 2019, the Dutch museum shop prize was established. It would be awarded for the first time at NEMO on April 6, 2020.
Criteria include: an accessible store, a wide range of products for every target group. It is important that the range is also in line with the collection and the current exhibition. Suppliers were asked to nominate stores, they have a good idea of this. This list, consisting of: Drents Museum in Assen, Teylers Museum in Haarlem, Singer Museum in Laren, Design Museum in Den Bosch, The Kröller-Müller in Otterlo and the Hermitage in Amsterdam, was presented to frequent museum visitors.
The Hermitage was cited by many as the most attractive store. It is also nice that it is also accessible without a ticket, making it a great gift shop for the neighbourhood. The prize is also accompanied by a sum of money made available by the sponsor Bekking en Blitz, a Dutch producer of cards. Because the presentation could not take place in 2020 due to corona, this has been postponed to 2021. On the museum shopping day of October 25, especially for museums from Amsterdam and the surrounding area, the Hermitage was surprised with this prize.