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
Compton Verney has announced ten new trustees across its two boards. Artist and academic Kimathi Donkor and Birmingham Botanical Gardens’ Jen Ridding join the Compton Verney House Charity, alongside Young Trustees DAZO and Liberty Foster as observers. Five senior figures from the museum and heritage sector including curators from the V&A and William Morris Gallery and the Director of Waddesdon Manor will join the Compton Verney Collections Settlement in June, with Courtauld graduate Sophie Bostock also appointed as a Young Trustee observer. CEO Geraldine Collinge said the new appointments bring “an enormous wealth of knowledge” to the organisation.
Openings & closures
A 1930s municipal office building in Northampton has been transformed into Arts Collective, a new arts centre opening on 1 May 2026 following a £5.2m retrofit. The converted Guildhall Road building houses 17 artist studios, a gallery, learning and community spaces, and a permanent archive for the Northamptonshire Black History Association. The project was developed through a co-design process involving artists and architects including Sean Griffiths, Studio Morison, Giles Round and pHp Architects. The centre will launch with an exhibition of Northamptonshire-born conceptual artist Rose Finn-Kelcey, marking the first presentation of her work in her hometown.
Northampton municipal building becomes arts centre after £5.2m retrofit
Exhibitions
From Monastery to Mansion: Portraiture, Power and Ambition
Audley End House | Saffron Walden
Opening: 28 March 2025 – Closing: 1 November 2026
The display marks the 400th anniversary of the death of Thomas Howard, 1st Earl of Suffolk, who created Audley End House but was ultimately convicted of corruption. Portraits of three generations of the Howard family are exhibited together for the first time, tracing the transformation of the site from a Benedictine monastery gifted by Henry VIII into England’s finest Jacobean mansion. The exhibition explores the family’s rise to power and subsequent disgrace through portraiture spanning the 16th and 17th centuries.
Criminal: An Untold History of Homelessness, Resistance and Survival
Museum of Homelessness | London
Opening: 21 May 2026 – Closing: 25 July 2026
The exhibition explores 400 years of criminalisation of homelessness, starting with the ‘Homelessness Big Bang’ in the early 1600s. It examines the intertwined histories of people made homeless and transported from England, Ireland and Africa to early plantations, covering land enclosure, colonial rebellion, Elizabethan Rogue literature, Victorian institutions and modern disinformation. The exhibition features new work from 10Foot, Gemma Lees, Matt Bonner, Spelling Mistakes Cost Lives and Surfing Sofas, staged in an English perennial meadow at the museum’s Finsbury Park site.
Marilyn Monroe: A Portrait
National Portrait Gallery | London
Opening: 4 June 2026 – Closing: 6 September 2026
The exhibition celebrates Marilyn Monroe’s 100th birthday, exploring her life, career and legacy through portraits by photographers and artists including Andy Warhol, Pauline Boty, Richard Avedon, Cecil Beaton and Milton Greene. It features previously unseen photographs from ‘Life’ magazine taken by Allan Grant one day before Monroe’s death in August 1962. The exhibition examines Monroe’s collaborative approach to image making and her influence on artists across generations.
Cornish Myths & Legends
Royal Cornwall Museum | Truro
Opening: 31 March 2026
The exhibition explores the origins of Cornish mythology through art, artefacts, storytelling and interactive elements. It features nine tales linked to Cornwall’s landscape, including the Mermaid of Zennor, with stone carvings from St Piran’s chapel and inscribed stones from Tintagel. The show includes activities such as potion design, dressing up, and a storytelling corner, examining how folklore connects communities with nature and seasonal celebrations.
Funding
Fourteen museum organisations across Scotland have received a share of £130,947 through the latest round of the Small Grants Fund, supported by the Scottish Government. Awards will fund a range of projects spanning collections care, community co-curation, and audience engagement. Among the recipients, Renfrewshire Leisure will restore 19th-century telescopes and reopen Coats Observatory for public stargazing, while Shetland Amenity Trust will co-curate an exhibition on early Christianity centred on the Bressay Stone. Museums & Galleries Edinburgh will partner with young people in kinship care to create an exhibition through filmmaking and arts workshops, and The Whithorn Trust will begin work on a full-scale reconstruction of a timber church dating to around 700CE.
