The weekly feature rounds up the latest updates in museum appointments, openings, funding and new exhibitions from across the UK.
Museum Moves is supported by DJW Projects Limited: DJW Projects Limited. DJW Projects Limited is recognised as one of the UK’s leading forces in the audio-visual industry, providing creative lighting, Audio Visual and multimedia solutions globally to achieve the ultimate technological experience, using sound, lighting, vision and interaction.
Appointments
Helen Campbell has been appointed chief financial officer at London Transport Museum, joining the senior leadership team in early April. Campbell brings over 30 years of experience spanning commercial, charity and cultural sectors, having previously held CFO roles at English National Opera and positions at Thomson Reuters and Save the Children International. She arrives as the museum prepares for its 50th anniversary in 2030, and will help shape plans for its Covent Garden site and Acton collection store. She succeeds interim CFO Heidi Clayton, who has held the role since March 2024.
Art Fund has announced the first ten appointments to Empowering Curators, a five-year programme of curatorial fellowships for senior to mid-career curators from Global Majority backgrounds.
Art Fund appoints 10 curators to five-year fellowship programme
Openings & closures
An octagonal granite cabin dating back to 1844 has been opened to the public by National Museums Liverpool, its newest and smallest museum.
National Museums Liverpool opens newest, and smallest, museum
Black Country Living Museum has completed the brick-by-brick relocation and reconstruction of Woodside Library, marking the final element of its multi-million-pound 1940s-1960s development project. The historic building opens to visitors from Wednesday 18 March.
Historic 1894 library rebuilt brick-by-brick at living museum
Exhibitions
The Joseph Hage Aaronson & Bremen Exhibition: Hepworth in Colour
The Courtauld Gallery | London
Opening: 12 June 2026 – Closing: 6 September 2026
The first exhibition devoted to Barbara Hepworth’s lifelong fascination with colour, featuring some 20 sculptures and 30 drawings and paintings. The exhibition explores Hepworth’s innovative use of colour from the mid-1930s through the 1960s, including painted sculptures, stringed works, and expressive paintings. A major highlight is ‘Sculpture with Colour (Oval Form), Pale Blue and Red’ (1943), acquired by The Hepworth Wakefield in 2025 and displayed in London for the first time since acquisition.
Jurassic Oceans: Monsters of the Deep
Natural History Museum | London
Opening: 22 May 2026
The exhibition explores the oceans of 200 million years ago, featuring marine reptiles including ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs and mosasaurs. Visitors can see specimens from the Museum’s palaeontology collection, touch fossil casts including a Baryonyx claw, and learn how these predators maintained healthy ocean ecosystems. The exhibition is informed by the Museum’s scientists and includes film, cutting-edge science and interactive elements.
David Hockney
Tate Modern | London
Opening: Summer 2027
A multimedia installation in the Turbine Hall coinciding with Hockney’s 90th birthday. The exhibition will feature his celebrated opera set and costume designs from the 1970s onwards, projected onto vast screens. Visitors will experience music and art in motion within Tate Modern’s iconic space.
Quentin Blake: Performance
Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration | London
Opening: 15 May 2026
The exhibition charts Quentin Blake’s depiction of theatre through illustration, encompassing circus, pantomime, Greek comedy and Shakespearean drama. Over 100 original works on paper will be displayed, many never publicly shown before, including preparatory material and nearly 40 depictions of ‘Macbeth’ characters as birds. The exhibition explores how theatrical traditions have influenced Blake’s almost 80-year career.
Funding
The National Archives has awarded thirteen grants totalling just under £50,000 to make community-led research by galleries, museums, libraries and archives more inclusive and relevant.
National Archives awards £50,000 to 13 community archiving projects
