Yorkshire museum calls on curators to enter battle of the sculpted bums

Museum curators from around the globe have been invited by a Yorkshire Museum to help find the world’s “Best Museum Bum”.

The competition to find the statue or artwork with the most perfectly formed behind is the latest edition of the #CuratorBattle started by Yorkshire Museum, The Times reports.

The project, which has been taking place on social media, launched in April while most museums were closed due to the coronavirus lockdown.

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Since June, followers of the hashtag #BestMuseumBum have seen entries flying in from respected institutions including Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum as well as galleries in Japan, the US, Canada and Lithuania.

By far the most popular contest in the #CuratorBattle series, the #BestMuseumBum competition has led museums and galleries to stake their claims for the “best bee bottom, weaponised bum and the most impressive Tudor Bum”, The Guardian says.

“You can track Henry VIII’s burgeoning bottom through our collection of his combat armours” tweeted the Royal Armouries, Leeds, accompanied by a picture of the monarch’s derriere. “The Tudor tubster went from a modest 32in waist in 1520 to a whopping 51in booty by 1540. A 60% increase in trunk junk.”

Other categories born out of the challenge include the most “spectacularly tattooed behind” and the best “angular side bum”.

Artwork depicting animals and plants not usually associated with having bottoms, most notably fish and mushrooms, also appeared.

A spokesperson for Yorkshire Museum told the Express and Star that the competition was “a chance for museums big and small to share their objects under a given theme to create what essentially become global online exhibitions”.

“It’s great to see museums around the world sharing their cheekiest objects.”