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
London-based LGBTQ+ museum Queer Britain has a new Director, Andrew Given. Given has previously served as Head of Fundraising at the English National Opera and as Deputy Chair of Tara Theatre. The new appointment comes as the museum’s co-founder and inaugural Director, Joseph Galliano-Doig MBE steps down from the role after seven years.
The Salisbury Museum has announced the appointment of Michael Wade OBE as its Chair of the Board of Trustees. The museum, based in Wiltshire, houses a significant collection relating to Stonehenge and local archaeology. The museum is housed in The King’s House, a Grade I listed building.
Salisbury Museum appoints new Chair as redevelopment completes
Openings and closures
The countdown has begun for visits to the International Slavery Museum and Maritime Museum in Liverpool. Both will be closing their doors for a period of essential repair and maintenance works from 5 January, ahead of a major redevelopment project, subject to funding. Both museums are due to reopen in 2028.
The National Science and Media Museum in Bradford has announced it will reopen on 8 January. Closed last June for works readying it for Bradford City of Culture in 2025, it was previously set to reopen this Summer. The £6 million capital project called ‘Sound and Vision’, suffered delays caused by the construction of a new lift.
Exhibitions
A new display unveiled at the Horniman Museum and Gardens next month features some of the Benin objects returned to Nigerian ownership in 2022. The Great Kingdom of Benin display will showcase 24 objects, including five brass plaques known as ‘Benin bronzes’ on loan from the National Commission for Museums and Monuments of Nigeria. The display opens on 7 December 2024.
The first major public gallery exhibition of visual art from Stanley Donwood and Radiohead’s Thom Yorkevisual is to go on display at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. It will feature more than 120 works, including Radiohead album covers, promotional band images, personal sketchbooks and notebooks previously unseen by the public. The multi-media retrospective explores the relationship between visual art and music, showcasing collaborations from the 1980s to present day. The exhibition runs from 8 August 2025 – 11 January 2026.
The exhibition ‘Un/Common People: Folk Culture’ in Wessex at Museum & Art Swindon showcases over 100 objects exploring regional folk traditions, including sweetheart pin cushions made by First World War veterans, ancient shoes discovered in old buildings, and customised skateboards, alongside new folk songs and a story map created by local artists. The comprehensive display features films and photography by Create Studios capturing Wessex’s folk calendar, with many objects being exhibited publicly for the first time. The exhibition runs from 30 November 2024 – 8 March 2025.
The Courtauld will present the first exhibition outside Switzerland of masterpieces from the Oskar Reinhart Collection ‘Am Römerholz’, featuring Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings alongside earlier works, including Goya’s Still Life with Three Salmon Steaks, Géricault’s A Man Suffering from Delusions of Military Rank, and Van Gogh’s pair of hospital paintings. The exhibition will showcase notable works such as Toulouse-Lautrec’s The Clown Cha-U-Kao, Manet’s Au Café, and several pieces by Renoir and Cezanne, bringing many of these paintings to the UK for the first time. The Griffin Catalyst Exhibition: Goya to Impressionism. Masterpieces from the Oskar Reinhart Collection will run from 14 February 2025 – 26 May 2025.
Compton Verney has announced its 2025 programme, which includes the exhibition ‘Breathing with the Forest: Marshmallow Laser Feast (MLF)’. This immersive video installation – created by experiential artist collective Marshmallow Laser Feast (MLF) – will inhabit Compton Verney’s Adam Hall, with its direct connection to the landscape outside. Runs 8 February – 6 April 2025
A major exhibition exploring the relationship between land, architecture and language across three Scottish landscapes – Loch Ness, Orkney and Ravenscraig – has opened at V&A Dundee following its successful debut at the 18th Venice Architecture Biennale. ‘A Fragile Correspondence’, curated by Architecture Fringe, -ism magazine and /other, features works from architects, artists and writers. The free exhibition runs until Spring 2025.
Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft presents a landmark retrospective of visionary textile artist, printmaker and teacher Tadek Beutlich MBE, featuring his extraordinary tapestries, textile constructions and large relief prints. The exhibition showcases significant works including the eight-foot-tall ‘Dream Revealed’ (1968) crafted from unspun jute, mohair and horsehair, alongside intricate freestanding off-loom pieces and relief prints made using tree sections, Lycra and foam rubber. The exhibition runs from 18 January 2025 – 22 June 2025.
