News

Museum Moves 16 – 22 February 2024

Image: Albatross chick © Trustees of the Natural History Museum

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 Art Fund, which helps museums and galleries across the UK to develop their collections, support their staff and run exciting projects in their communities.

Openings/closures

The People’s Palace in Glasgow has announced it will close in April for a major refurbishment.

Glasgow Life, the charity which runs the museum, is encouraging people to make plans to visit before Sunday April 14 2024, after which it will be closed until 2027.

https://museumsandheritage.com/news/glasgows-peoples-palace-to-close-until-2027/

The Science Museum Group is to create a Museums Hub in Saudi Arabia which it says will become a ​​“centre of excellence for science and culture and support the wider museum sector”.The new hub, to be located in Riyadh, hoped to enable the group to work with museum professionals, researchers and educators in Saudi Arabia.

https://museumsandheritage.com/news/science-museum-group-to-create-museum-hub-in-saudi-arabia/

Jewry Wall Museum in Leicester is due to reopen this autumn, following a major renovation with a new exhibition of objects and stories of Roman Leicester.

Exhibitions

A new exhibition at the Natural History Museum, in affiliation with the RSPB, will focus on birds, and raise awareness of the new dangers they face. ‘Birds: Brilliant and Bizarre’ will explore the diversity and evolution of birds, and will feature a variety of interactive exhibits alongside specimens including the oldest known fossil of a modern bird. Runs 24 May 2024 – 5 January 2025.

Tate Britain has opened an exhibition dedicated to portrait painter John Singer Sargent. Staged in collaboration with the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the exhibition will feature 60 paintings – including rare loans as well as works drawn from their combined collections. The works will be displayed alongside period dresses and accessories, many of which were worn by his sitters. Runs until 7 July 2024.

Yorkshire Sculpture Park has announced an exhibition featuring 19 previously unreleased serigraphs signed by artist Robert Indiana, which will go on sale. The sale of the original prints

at Hauser & Wirth in London are to support the charitable aims of Yorkshire Sculpture Park which said it is facing “considerable financial strain”. Runs 21 March – 20 April 2024.

An exhibition at Ulster Museum includes over seventy works by Belfast-born painter, Sir John Lavery. ‘Lavery On Location’ stems from a partnership between National Gallery of Ireland and National Galleries of Scotland. It follows a run at the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin, and will display an array of his most notable paintings. Runs 23 February 2024 – 9 June 2024.

A newly developed exhibition at RAMM will explore how the data created from daily life can be expressed in new ways. Across twelve designed banners, the ‘Data-day life’ exhibition uses data from, and has been created by the museum’s Youth Panel. Runs 27 February to 2 June 2024.

Funding

Historic England is to fund 56 new projects across England, which tell the stories of the country’s working class heritage. The funding is provided through its Everyday Heritage grants, which were launched in 2022 and have supported 57 projects to date.

https://museumsandheritage.com/news/historic-england-to-fund-more-projects-telling-stories-of-working-class-heritage/

The V&A is looking to raise £2m to acquire a rare 12th-century ivory carving depicting the Deposition of Christ from the Cross. DCMS placed a temporary export bar on the walrus ivory carving last November. For 40 years it was on long-term loan to the V&A, ending in 2022. The carving has also been exhibited at The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Hayward Gallery.

https://museumsandheritage.com/news/va-looks-to-acquire-12th-century-ivory-carving-for-2m/