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
Brighton & Hove Museums is to recruit a new chief executive as Hedley Swain announces he will step down at the end of October 2026, following six years in the role. Abigail Thomas, currently deputy chief executive, will become interim chief executive at the end of October while the board of trustees recruits a permanent successor
London museum Queer Britain has announced the appointment of Sir Nick Partridge as its new chair of the board of trustees.
Openings & closures
New areas of MacLellan’s Castle in Kirkcudbright have been opened to the public by Historic Scotland. Following the completion of essential conservation works, its kitchen and vaulted cellars on the first floor and historic great hall, are now open to visitors, while some internal areas of the castle remain closed while conservation work continues.
MacLellan’s Castle reopens Great Hall and cellars as conservation continues
Exhibitions
Bayeux Around Britain: Casting a Masterpiece
Rievaulx Abbey | Rievaulx
Opening: March 2027 – Closing: May 2027
Rievaulx Abbey presents the Stothard Cast, a group of three Victorian hand-painted plaster casts of details from the Bayeux Tapestry, as the only northern venue on the British Museum’s national touring Spotlight Loan. Made by artist Charles Alfred Stothard from moulds taken directly from the Tapestry in 1816 and acquired by the British Museum in 1878, the three casts depict Harold Godwinson and Duke William of Normandy, drawn from scenes 46, 30 and 48. The casts are displayed in the abbey’s museum as part of Bayeux Around Britain, supported by WorldQuant.
Zak Ové: The Invisible Man and the Masque of Blackness
The Sherborne | Sherborne
Opening: 11 September 2026 – Closing: 10 September 2027
The Sherborne presents ‘The Invisible Man and the Masque of Blackness’ (2016) by British Trinidadian artist Zak Ové, an installation of thirteen identical figures, each over two metres high, assembled in a new formation created specifically for the gardens of the historic Georgian house. The work explores the strength and resilience of the African diaspora, its title referring to Ralph Ellison’s novel ‘Invisible Man’ and Ben Jonson’s 1605 Jacobean court entertainment ‘The Masque of Blackness’. First shown as an assembly of forty figures at Somerset House during the 2016 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair, the work is co-curated by Liz Gilmore, CEO of The Sherborne, and Sir Robert Fry, former Commandant General Royal Marines. Admission is free through a Pay What You Wish scheme.
Working at ‘The Cash’: 80 Years of NCR in Dundee
V&A Dundee | Dundee
Opening: 21 November 2026 – Closing: early 2027
V&A Dundee presents ‘Working at ‘The Cash’: 80 Years of NCR in Dundee’, a free exhibition exploring how the American company NCR, which opened its first UK factory in Dundee in 1946, shaped global banking technology. Through photography, film and archival objects, the display traces the company’s shift from cash registers to cutting-edge ATMs in the 1970s and tells the stories of its Dundee workforce, from Jim Adamson, credited with saving the company from closure in the 1980s, to its longest-serving employee of 47 years. Shown in the Michelin Design Gallery, the exhibition also considers the shift from physical cash to digital banking and the future of financial services.
Horrockses Fashions: Everyday Glamour & the Art of British Ready-to-Wear
The Harris | Preston
Opening: 19 September 2026 – Closing: 31 January 2027
The Harris presents ‘Horrockses Fashions: Everyday Glamour & the Art of British Ready-to-Wear’, marking the 80th anniversary of the Lancashire company that fused couture sensibilities with high-quality printed cottons. Drawing on the world’s largest museum collection of Horrockses dresses, the free display includes examples worn by women from mill workers to the royal family, among them dresses Queen Elizabeth II packed for her 1953–54 Commonwealth tour.
Cosimo I de’ Medici: Art and Dynasty
The Wallace Collection | London
Opening: 18 November 2026 – Closing: 21 March 2027
The Wallace Collection presents ‘Cosimo I de’ Medici: Art and Dynasty’, a free display exploring how Cosimo I de’ Medici (1519–1574), Duke of Florence and first Grand Duke of Tuscany, used art to legitimise his rule and establish the power of the Medici dynasty. The five objects include a monumental maiolica wine cooler made in the Urbino workshop of Flaminio Fontana in 1574, a falchion engraved with Cosimo’s heraldry, and a portrait of his wife Eleonora di Toledo from the studio of Agnolo Bronzino.
Duncan Campbell: A New No
Gallery of Modern Art | Glasgow
Opening: 10 October 2026 – Closing: 4 January 2027
The Gallery of Modern Art presents ‘Duncan Campbell: A New No’, a free commission by Turner Prize winner Duncan Campbell forming the final exhibition of GoMA’s 30th anniversary programme. Centred on a flip-disc electromagnetic screen that animates graphs, flow charts and cut-out imagery, accompanied by a single roaming narrator’s voice, the work draws on technology first used at the Montreal Stock Exchange to explore the seductive impression that markets have a life-force of their own.
