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 Transport Museum is looking for a new board chair. Its current chair Keith Ludeman OBE will step down after nine years in the role, in March 2027.
Openings & closures
Modernist house 22 Parkside in Wimbledon has been given to the National Trust by the family of its architects, and will open to the public this weekend.
Exhibitions
Georgia O’Keeffe: Ghost Ranch
The Courtauld Gallery | London
Opening: 1 October 2027 – Closing: 30 January 2028
The Courtauld Gallery presents the first exhibition devoted to Georgia O’Keeffe’s landscapes made at and around her home at Ghost Ranch, New Mexico, between the mid-1930s and 1950s. Almost two dozen works, most never shown in the UK, feature the region’s weathered rock formations and the flat-topped Cerro Pedernal, with major loans from US institutions including the Whitney and the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum.
Impressions of Light: Masterpieces from MuMa – Le Havre and The Bowes Museum
The Bowes Museum | Barnard Castle
Opening: 26 September 2026 – Closing: 14 March 2027
The Bowes Museum presents ‘Impressions of Light’, a major exhibition of over 60 works tracing the evolution of landscape painting from Pre-Impressionism to Post-Impressionism, in partnership with the Musée d’art moderne André Malraux (MuMa) in Le Havre. Bringing works by Monet, Boudin, Courbet, Pissarro and Dufy from France, many shown in the UK for the first time, the display presents them in themed groupings echoing the coast, cliffs, moorland and dales of County Durham alongside the museum’s own pre-Impressionist collection.
LAIKA presents WILDWOOD: The Exhibition
Design Museum | London
Opening: 15 October 2026 – Closing: 10 January 2027
The Design Museum presents ‘LAIKA presents WILDWOOD: The Exhibition’, made with the Portland-based stop-motion studio LAIKA to explore the design and making of their forthcoming film Wildwood, timed to coincide with the film’s release. Bringing together original creative material, production objects, costumes, film-making tools and interactive installations, the display traces the film from early visual research through puppet fabrication, miniature set construction, animation and cinematography, and includes objects from LAIKA’s earlier films such as Coraline and Kubo and the Two Strings.
George Shaw: My Haunts
Mead Gallery, Warwick Arts Centre | Coventry
Opening: 7 May 2027 – Closing: 27 June 2027
The Mead Gallery presents ‘George Shaw: My Haunts’, a homecoming survey marking the 60th birthday year of the former Turner Prize-nominee, who returns to the city of his birth for his first exhibition at the venue. Featuring around 70 works, mostly made over the past decade, the paintings and drawings depict the empty playing fields, woodlands, pubs, bus stops and housing estates of the Tile Hill council estate where Shaw grew up, rendered in Humbrol enamel paints.
70 Years of The Cavern Club
Museum of Liverpool | Liverpool
Opening: 16 January 2027 – Closing: 31 October 2027
The Museum of Liverpool presents ’70 Years of The Cavern Club’, opening 70 years to the day since the venue opened, charting its journey from a post-war jazz cellar on Mathew Street to a global cultural phenomenon. Featuring more than 200 pieces, the display includes John Lennon’s suede jacket worn during the 1963 recording of ‘With The Beatles’, Paul McCartney’s Cavern dressing table, Stevie Wonder’s 1966 performance contract signed aged 15, and a recreation of the iconic Cavern stage.
Funding
The National Lottery Heritage Fund has laid out its plans to invest more than £1.4bn over the next three years. The plan covers 2026 to 2029 and sets out investment across every local authority in the UK, and is part of its larger 10-year Heritage 2033 strategy.
National Lottery Heritage Fund sets out £1.4bn three year plan
