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
The British Museum has announced that Sir Jony Ive, former chief designer at Apple, has been appointed to its Board of Trustees. The London born British designer, who lives in San Francisco, is best-known for his work at Apple, as chief design officer, where he led the team that designed the iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch.
Former Apple design chief Sir Jony Ive becomes British Museum Trustee
John Booth CVO has been reappointed by the Prime Minister as a Trustee of the National Gallery for a second four-year term running from August 20, 2025 to August 19, 2029. The National Gallery’s Board of Trustees has confirmed that Booth will continue serving as Chairman, a role he has held since joining the Board in March 2021.
Openings & closures
Erewash Museum will close to the public from Saturday 21 June until mid-July for refurbishment works to improve the Dalby House café area, reception, and retail spaces. The improvements are funded by the UK Shared Prosperity Fund and will enhance heritage features while creating a more welcoming and versatile visitor experience, the council-run museum said.
Exhibitions
Manchester Museum in Manchester has acquired Henry Dresser’s unique author’s copy of ‘A History of the Birds of Europe’, a 19th-century ornithological work illustrated by leading wildlife artists of the period. Manchester Museum will exhibit the landmark publication following its acquisition in partnership with the John Rylands Library. The exhibition opens 28 June 2025.
Manchester Museum presents Henry Dresser’s author’s copy of ‘A History of the Birds of Europe’, a 19th-century ornithological work illustrated by leading wildlife artists of the period. The landmark publication, recently acquired by the museum, will be displayed in the Living Worlds gallery from 28 June 2025 – 25 January 2026 before being transferred to The John Rylands Library for ongoing public and research access.
South Shields Museum & Art Gallery presents ‘Spirit of the North East: The Art of Richard Hobson’, a retrospective exhibition celebrating the work of Richard Hobson (1945-2004). The exhibition showcases Hobson’s depictions of the region’s industrial landscapes, natural beauty and working communities, including scenes from ship repair yards at the Mouth of the Tyne to the moorlands of the North Pennines. Many of the artworks on display are available for purchase, running until 1st November 2025.
‘Marie Antoinette Style’ at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London will display 250 objects including Marie Antoinette’s personal silk slippers, jewels from her private collection, and the final note she wrote before her death, alongside exceptional loans from Versailles never before seen outside France. The exhibition will feature contemporary couture pieces by Moschino, Dior, Chanel, and Vivienne Westwood, as well as costumes and Manolo Blahnik shoes from Sofia Coppola’s Oscar-winning film ‘Marie Antoinette’. The exhibition runs from 20 September 2025 – 22 March 2026.
‘POO!’ at the Thackray Museum of Medicine in Leeds explores digestion, diet, disease and the science behind human bodily functions through three themes: the colour, smell and textures of poo; diet and digestion; and germs and diseases. Objects on display include a 12th-century medieval poo, a proctogram chair, Victorian constipation cures, vintage laxative adverts, a poo sphere encased in resin from the National Poo Museum, and puzzle postcards advertising Seth Arnold’s Balsam patent medicine. The exhibition runs from 26 July 2025 – 4 January 2026.
‘The Space Vault Exhibition’ opens at Thinktank, Birmingham Science Museum in Birmingham, featuring one of the UK’s largest private collections of space artefacts from human space exploration. Objects on display include mission checklists that saved the crew of Apollo 13, Commander Dave Scott’s spacesuit umbilical cord, lunar dust from the Hadley Rille landing site of Apollo 15, material from the Apollo 11 command module, a rare Soviet pressure suit, and part of the nose cone of the first Starship to reach space. The exhibition opens 14 June 2025.
‘To Shift a Stone’ by Sophie Mak-Schram is a two-part exhibition featuring collaborative ‘tools’ including access templates, modified megaphones, ceramics and sound pieces. Items from the Schools Outreach Collection and Asian Art corridor are displayed alongside new commissioned work. National Museum Cardiff presents the exhibition 14 June 2025 – 15 February 2026, whilst Chapter Arts Centre in Cardiff shows the work 13 September 2025 – 11 January 2026.
Hayward Gallery in London presents ‘Yoshitomo Nara’, the first UK solo exhibition at a public art gallery by the Japanese artist, featuring four decades of work including paintings, drawings, sculptures and portraits. The major retrospective displays works such as Ships in Girl (1992), From the Bomb Shelter (2017), Missing in Action (1999), Miss Margaret (2016) and Midnight Tears (2023), alongside a fully illustrated catalogue with newly commissioned essays. The exhibition runs from 10 June 2025 – 31 August 2025.
‘Myth and Reality: Military Art in the Age of Queen Victoria’ presents over 100 works of art exploring Victorian military attitudes, featuring 25 works by Lady Butler including ‘The Dawn of Waterloo’ (1895) and ‘The Roll Call’ (1874) from the Royal Collection, alongside significant loans from the National Portrait Gallery. The National Army Museum in London showcases works by William Simpson, Joseph Arthur Crowe, Edward Matthew Hale, Georges Bertin Scott and Edmund Walker, with displays including Victoria Cross medals from Field Marshal Frederick Sleigh Roberts and his son, and Thomas Barker Jones’s five-metre wide ‘The Capitulation of Kars, Crimean War, 28 November 1855’. The exhibition runs 1 July 2025 – 1 November 2026.
‘Then and now: London’s transport in photographs’ at London Transport Museum in Covent Garden features 40 photographs comparing historical transport scenes from the 19th century onwards with newly commissioned contemporary images by photographer and TfL Train Driver Anne Maningas. The exhibition marks the 25th anniversary of Transport for London and includes historical images from the Museum’s collection alongside Maningas’ analogue photographs captured using a vintage 1990s Bronica medium format film camera previously used by Museum staff. The exhibition runs from 23 June 2025 until Spring 2026.
Funding
The National Coal Mining Museum has been awarded just over £87,000 from the John Ellerman Foundation to undertake a comprehensive review of its Industrial Heritage collection, focusing on mining machinery conservation, engagement potential, and display opportunities. This highly competitive grant, awarded to only around six museums annually, will fund a Collections Review Assistant position from September 2025 to March 2028 to help preserve and interpret the nationally significant collection of mining equipment that represents Britain’s industrial heritage.
