Appointments

Orna NiChionna has been appointed as the new Chair of the Eden Trust, the charity responsible for the Eden Project. She has previously served on the boards of Royal Mail, HMV, Bupa, and Saga. She is currently the Senior Independent Director at Burberry. NiChionna will join the Board of Trustees this month, and will succeed Edward Benthall in the role in June.

Openings

Tate Liverpool is to reopen in 2025, as it announces a temporarily closure later this year ahead of a multi-year gallery redevelopment. The building on Royal Albert Dock will close on Monday 16 October 2023.

Tate Liverpool announces temporary closure dates ahead of gallery redevelopment

Due to open in 2025, a planning application has been submitted for the £18m transformation of Hereford’s Grade II Hereford Museum and Art Gallery. The completed project will include the restoration of the historic Woolhope club room as well as new commercial areas, including a shop, café and an events and education space.

Planning application submitted for £18m Hereford Museum and Art Gallery redevelopment

The Walker Art Gallery’s Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque galleries will reopen to the public in July following a three-year, £4m refurbishment. ‘Renaissance Rediscovered’ will feature 200 paintings, sculptures, decorative art objects, prints and drawings from its collection of Western European art from the 13th to the 18th century. Also featured will be newly acquired masterpieces ‘Allegory of Painting and Music’, the first painting by Giovanni Andrea Sirani to enter a UK public collection, and ‘Flowers in a Glass Vase on a Marble Ledge’ by 17th-century Dutch artist, Willem van Aelst. The public display opens on 29 July 2023.

Exhibitions

This summer, the biggest ever exhibition of Sir Grayson Perry’s work will take place at the National Galleries of Scotland. Covering his 40-year career, ‘Grayson Perry: Smash Hits’ will take over the Upper Galleries of the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh. Featuring more than 80 works including pots, prints, and sculptures, the exhibition has been developed in close collaboration with the artist and Victoria Miro gallery. The works will be organised through themes of Perry’s art, including masculinity, sexuality, class, religion, politics and identity. Runs 22 July – 12 November 2023.

The history of lighthouses, their keepers and engineers will be explored in a new exhibition by The Scottish Maritime Museum. ‘Following the Lights’, is now open in the Museum’s Linthouse building on Irvine Harbourside and features rare artefacts, letters, photography and memorabilia gathered by lighthouse enthusiast and photographer Peter Gellatly. Runs until 18 June 2023.

An exhibition showcasing 18th Century artist William Hogarth opens at Derby Museum and Art Gallery this March, as a result of partnerships with two national galleries, several major grants and a public appeal, which raised £20,000 from museum supporters last autumn. The free exhibition, ‘Hogarth’s Britons: Succession, Patriotism, and the 1745 Jacobite Rebellion’ brings together over 40 works from the artist, whose works range from life size portraits to stories told through multiple connected scenes, which he called ‘modern moral subjects’. The exhibition will also feature paintings by Hogarth’s contemporaries and other objects from the time that tell the story of the Jacobite struggle. Runs 10 March – 4 June 2023.

At The National Museum of Computing, a new exhibition will explore Britain’s high-speed communications history and future. ‘Flowers to Fibre’ will plot the start of a journey to modernise Britain’s telephone network by Tommy Flowers, the man behind Bletchley Park’s Colossus code-breaking computer. The exhibition, created in collaboration with the Communications Museum Trust, will feature interactive experiences, including the chance to experience “dial-up internet”. Runs from 11 March 2023.

At Tate Modern next month, a new exhibition will explore the combined art of Hilma af Klint and Piet Mondrian. While the abstract artists never met, the exhibition will explore how both invented their own languages of abstract modern art, rooted in nature. ‘Hilma af Klint and Piet Mondrian: Forms of Life’, runs 20 April – 3 September 2023.

The life and career of portrait photographer Dorothy Wilding, who took the portrait of the young Queen Elizabeth II featured on UK stamps, is being celebrated in an exhibition which opened yesterday at the Eastgate Centre in Gloucester as part of the sector’s celebrations of International Women’s Day.

Museums celebrate International Women’s Day

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Image: Kenilworth AM1, 2010 Custom-built motorcycle © Grayson Perry. Courtesy the artist and Victoria Miro Photo Angus Mill