The weekly feature rounds up the latest updates in museum appointments, openings, funding and new exhibitions from across the UK.
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Appointments
Oliver Jeffers, the illustrator known for children’s books including ‘How to Catch a Star’ and ‘Lost and Found’, has been appointed as a trustee to the board of the Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration. The appointment supports the Centre’s preparation for its 2026 opening in Clerkenwell, which will become the world’s largest arts space dedicated to illustration.
The chief executive of English Heritage has reportedly stepped down from the role, citing personal reasons and family health, according to a statement sent to staff.
Openings and closures
The opening of Paisley Museum has been delayed to 2026, marking another postponement for the heritage project that was most recently targeted to open this spring. The transformation represents the first major refurbishment in the building’s 150-year history, with Renfrewshire Council having increased its budget last year to just over £65m in total.
Paisley Museum opening delayed to 2026 following construction challenges
Exhibitions
‘Thread Memory: Embroidery from Palestine’ opens at V&A Dundee in Dundee, featuring more than 30 historical Palestinian dresses alongside veils, headdresses, jewellery, accessories and archival photography from the collections of the Palestinian Museum in Birzeit and the V&A. The exhibition explores tatreez embroidery from the late 19th century to the present day, showcasing regional variations from Galilee to Bethlehem and Jerusalem, and includes contemporary works by artists Leena Nammari, Aya Haidar and fashion designer Zeid Hijazi, plus an embroidered dress worn by Dundee City Councillor Nadia El-Nakla at the Scottish Parliament in 2023. The exhibition runs 26 June 2025 – Spring 2026.
‘Lucian Freud: Drawing into Painting’ at the National Portrait Gallery in London will examine the artist’s works on paper from the 1930s to the early twenty-first century, featuring drawings in pencil, pen, ink, charcoal and etching alongside selected paintings. The exhibition will include newly acquired works from Freud’s estate, including eight etchings such as ‘Bella in her Pluto T-Shirt’ depicting the artist’s daughter, marking the first etchings by Freud to enter the NPG’s collection. The exhibition runs 12 February 2026 – 3 May 2026.
Mining Art Gallery in Bishop Auckland presents ‘Fuelling the Railway Revolution’, marking the 200th anniversary of the Stockton & Darlington Railway through paintings spanning two centuries. The exhibition features works from Tom McGuinness and Norman Cornish, a painting of Backworth’s ‘A’ Pit on loan from Laing Art Gallery, ‘The Collier’ from Leeds Libraries, Thomas Hair’s watercolour ‘Old Locomotive Engine, Wylam Colliery’ (c.1838-1842), and recent acquisitions including Robert Soden’s ‘Diesel Engine, Hendon Shunting Yard’ and ‘Coal Wagons, Level Crossing, Hendon Beach’. The exhibition runs 27 June 2025 – December 2025.
‘Resistance: How Protest Shaped Britain and Photography Shaped Protest’ presents around 200 photographs from a century of activism, spanning from the radical suffrage movement in 1903 to the Anti-Iraq War Protest in 2003. The exhibition at National Galleries Scotland: Modern Two in Edinburgh features works by photographers including Vanley Burke, John Deakin, Fay Godwin, Edith Tudor-Hart, David Hurn, Tish Murtha, Humphrey Spender, and Paul Trevor, documenting events such as the hunger marches of the 1930s, the Blind March of 1920, the Black People’s Day of Action on 2 March 1981, and protests at Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp. The exhibition runs 21 June 2025 – 4 January 2026.
‘EarthBound’ launches at the Museum of Making in Derby, featuring work by 14 artists including sculptures by Sally Matthews made from compost, grass, feathers and grasses, with her giant aurochs sculpture on Level 1 standing almost 2 metres tall. The exhibition displays micrographs by Alex Hyde showing subjects such as green tiger beetles and tardigrade, cyanotype portraits by Kate Bellis incorporating Longcliffe Quarry dust and oak galls, and sculptural drawings by EJ Lance inspired by portrait photography and cave bone finds. The exhibition opens 22 June 2025.
Dorset Museum & Art Gallery in Dorchester will collaborate with The Ingram Collection to present ‘People Watching’, featuring approximately 50 works of sculpture, paintings, drawings and photography spanning over a century of British portraiture from 1915 to today. The exhibition will include works by over 40 artists such as Bridget Riley’s Woman at Tea-table from the 1950s, Dod Procter’s The Golden Girl (circa 1930), Robert Duckworth Greenham’s On the Beach (1934), Edward Burra’s Seamen Ashore, Greenock (circa 1944), and two sculptures by Dame Elisabeth Frink alongside previously unexhibited works from Dorset’s own collection. The exhibition runs from 31 January 2026 – 10 May 2026.
‘Nigerian Modernism’ at Tate Modern in London presents over 250 works by more than 50 artists spanning 50 years, including paintings, sculptures, textiles, ceramics and works on paper from Ben Enwonwu to El Anatsui. The exhibition features works by artists from The Zaria Arts Society, The Mbari Artists’ and Writers’ Club, the New Sacred Art Movement, and The Oshogbo Art School, alongside Uzo Egonu’s ‘Stateless People’ paintings series and issues of the Pan-African modernist journal ‘Black Orpheus’. The exhibition runs from 9 October 2025 – 11 May 2026.
‘Drawing the Italian Renaissance’ features more than 80 drawings by 57 artists from the Royal Collection, including works by Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Titian and Raphael. Key works on display include Leonardo da Vinci’s curly-haired head of a young man in red and black chalk, Michelangelo’s grotesque head and tormented facial expression, Raphael’s ‘Christ’s Charge to Peter’ tapestry design for the Sistine Chapel, and a 550-year-old drawing of a young man with a sleeping dog by an unknown artist. The King’s Gallery at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh will host the exhibition from 17 October 2025 – 1 March 2026.
The National Gallery in London presents its first major UK monographic exhibition devoted to Francisco de Zurbarán (1598–1664), featuring almost 50 paintings spanning the chronological and iconographic breadth of the Spanish artist’s career. Key works on display include Saint Margaret of Antioch, A Cup of Water and a Rose, Juan de Zurbarán’s Still Life with Lemons in a Wicker Basket from the National Gallery’s collection, alongside major loans such as Agnus Dei from the Museo Nacional del Prado and Saint Francis of Assisi from the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon. The exhibition runs from 2 May 2026 – 23 August 2026.
Funding
Bristol Museum & Art Gallery has launched a public crowdfunding effort to acquire JMW Turner’s “The Rising Squall”. The museum has already raised more than £79,000 at the time of writing, with the aim of reaching £100,000 to compete at auction next month.
