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
The British Library has appointed a new permanent chief executive. Dr Paul Bate will take up his new role on 4 November 2026, succeeding interim chief executive Dr Jeremy Silver.
Exhibitions
Constantinople to Istanbul: One City, Two Empires
V&A South Kensington | London
Opening: 7 November 2026 – Closing: 9 May 2027
The V&A presents ‘Constantinople to Istanbul: One City, Two Empires’, the first major UK exhibition to explore 1,600 years of artistic production in the city across two successive empires, the Byzantine (AD 330–1453) and the Ottoman (1453–1922). Featuring over 200 objects across four sections — including silks, ceramic tiles, mosaics, metalwork, manuscripts and paintings, many shown in the UK for the first time — highlights include Gentile Bellini’s 1479 portrait of Sultan Mehmed II, the Veroli Casket and loans from the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Art, the Vatican Museums and the Treasury of San Marco.
Football Art Prize
National Football Museum | Manchester
Opening: 21 November 2026 – Closing: 21 February 2027
The National Football Museum presents the ‘Football Art Prize’, an international open-call competition showing football from the perspective of fans, visiting Manchester for the first time. Selected from 900 entries and shortlisted to 75 works across video, photography, collage, drawing and painting, the exhibition spans the Premier League, the women’s game, non-league and amateur communities, with artists from countries including the Netherlands, Bangladesh, Greenland, Colombia, Jamaica and India. This year’s first prize went to Rochdale-based artist Alina Akbar for her film ‘footwork’, and visitors can vote for a People’s Choice award for the first time.
Football Art Prize
National Football Museum | Manchester
Opening: 21 November 2026 – Closing: 21 February 2027
The National Football Museum presents the ‘Football Art Prize’, an international open-call competition showing football from the perspective of fans, visiting Manchester for the first time. Selected from 900 entries and shortlisted to 75 works across video, photography, collage, drawing and painting, the exhibition spans the Premier League, the women’s game, non-league and amateur communities, with artists from countries including the Netherlands, Bangladesh, Greenland, Colombia, Jamaica and India. This year’s first prize went to Rochdale-based artist Alina Akbar for her film ‘footwork’, and visitors can vote for a People’s Choice award for the first time.
Watteau: Reverie and Realism
The Wallace Collection | London
Opening: 12 March 2027 – Closing: 25 July 2027
The Wallace Collection presents ‘Watteau: Reverie and Realism’, a major exhibition on the French artist Antoine Watteau (1684–1721), exploring the contradiction between his dreamlike fêtes galantes and the earthy realism rooted in his Flemish origins and habit of drawing from life. Presenting his paintings alongside the observational drawings that informed them, it covers the full range of his subjects, from observations of contemporary life to his fêtes galantes, nudes and enigmatic landscapes, and includes X-rays of some paintings that reveal his layered working process.
Evolving Earth
National Museum of Scotland | Edinburgh
New permanent display
The National Museum of Scotland presents ‘Evolving Earth’, a new free permanent display exploring how the diversity of minerals has increased over time, from the first diamonds preserved in the Allende Meteorite to a plastic pipe with gypsum crystals less than 40 years old, showing how human industrial activity is leaving its imprint on the geological record. On display for the first time are new minerals caused by human activity and a lunar meteorite, alongside coverage of events including the formation of the Moon and the Great Oxidation Event of around 2.4 billion years ago.
Funding
Bristol Dockyards has received £18,295 from the RICHeS Access Fund, part of UKRI’s Arts and Humanities Research Council, to fund research with Cardiff University and English Heritage into improving conservation of the SS Great Britain’s iron hull while reducing the dehumidification system’s carbon footprint and running costs.
