Appointments
The Tank Museum’s outgoing Director was honoured in a traditional tank-pulling ceremony on his final day at the Dorset charity. Richard Smith OBE was seated in the commander’s seat as 16 staff pulled the tank forward. Smith is succeeded in the role by Chris Price, currently CEO of North Yorkshire Moors Railway, who will assume the role of Director in January 2024.
National Galleries of Scotland has announced the appointment of Anne Lyden as its new Director-General. Lyden is currentlyInterim Co-Director of Collection and Research, and will become the first female Director-General of the National Galleries of Scotland in its history.
New Director-General appointed at National Galleries of Scotland
Openings
The new Perth Museum will open to the public in March 2024, the museum has announced today.Visitors will get their first look at the £27 million investment project which has transformed Perth’s former City Hall.
The City of Edinburgh Council has granted planning permission for the National Galleries of Scotland’s new building, The Art Works. The multi-purpose building will act as a new community space, and conservation, research and art storage facility in North Edinburgh.
The Art Works: Plans approved for new National Galleries of Scotland building
A former theatre ticket kiosk, which served the West End until its closure in Spring 2021, is to be transformed into a cafe and pop-up shopping space by The National Portrait Gallery. The space, purchased last year for a reported £3m via support from The Blavatnik Family Foundation, is a 700 square foot area below ground level.
National Portrait Gallery turns disused ticket kiosk into café and pop-up shop
Plans have been revealed for a new culture and education center within the grounds of the South Downs National Park in Sussex. The planning application for Black Robin Farm follows Eastbourne Borough Council’s successful £19.8 million bid to the government’s Levelling Up Fund.
New arts, education and cultural centre planned for South Downs National Park
Exhibitions
The V&A is to present a major exhibition of contemporary photography, on loan from the private collection of Sir Elton John and David Furnish., In partnership with Gucci, on show will be 300 rare prints from over 140 photographers – the majority of which will be on display to the public for the first time. ‘Fragile Beauty: Photographs from the Sir Elton John and David Furnish Collection’ is to be the V&A’s largest temporary exhibition of photography to date. Following on from the 2016 exhibition The Radical Eye: Modernist Photography from the Sir Elton John Collection at the Tate Modern, the exhibition will cover the period from the 1950s to the present day. Runs 18 May 2024 – 5 January 2025.
A display of designs by renowned female fashion designers has opened at the Walker Art Gallery. Pieces from Vivienne Westwood, Mary Quant and Laura Ashley are showcased in ‘Creating Visions: Women Designers 1900-2000’. On display are costumes, jewellery and decorative objects in its Craft and Design Gallery, drawn from National Museums Liverpool’s decorative arts collection.
A new display at the British Museum will celebrate three generations of women silversmiths from the Sultanate of Oman, Tuful Ramadan (1949–2021), Mahfoudha al-Balushi (b. 1965) and Fatma al Najjar (b. 1992). ‘The Asahi Shimbun Display, Making their mark: women silversmiths from Oman’ presents the results of fieldwork carried out between 2019–2022 as part of an ongoing, all-women-led research project launched by the British Museum in collaboration with scholars from Oman, Canada and the USA. It will highlight silversmiths’ knowledge and technical skills, displaying silver work alongside personal testimonies. Runs 19 October – 17 December 2023.
Staying on the British Museum, its Touring Exhibition ‘Drawing attention: emerging artists in dialogue’ can be seen in partnering galleries in York, Wolverhampton and Hartlepool between this week and August 2024. Having evolved from an exhibition at the museum, the three partner galleries will use the tour to highlight their own collections alongside contemporary drawings and highlights of the British Museum’s collection from Mary Delany, Andy Warhol and Barbara Hepworth. The tour begins at York Art Gallery from 27 October 2023 – 28 January,
2024, followed by Wolverhampton Art Gallery 10 February 2024 – 6 May 2024, and Hartlepool Art Gallery 18 May 2024 – 24 August 2024.
The National Football Museum has this week opened a new photographic exhibition, ‘A City United’, ahead of the 191st Manchester derby fixture. The exhibition features a collection of portraits of both Manchester City and Manchester United by photographer Iain S. P. Reid, captured at derby matches between 1976 and 1977. Runs until 31 January 2024.
An exhibition dedicated to the works of Belfast-born artist Colin Middleton MBE has opened at Ulster Museum. The museum said Middleton is widely regarded as the most significant artist working in Northern Ireland in the twentieth century, and one of the greatest Irish painters of this period. Titled ‘Among This Peace and Noise’, the exhibition includes ‘Allotments: Annadale’, which Middleton painted in 1941 to express his concern with the impact of the war and the city’s social conditions. Runs to 21 January 2024.
Funding
The Weston Loan Programme from Art Fund has opened for entries. Earlier this year it was announced that the scheme, which enables smaller museums to borrow significant works from major collections, would be extended until 2027. Grants to support the short-term loans of important works of art and artefacts to museums and galleries, range from £5,000 to £35,000.
