Regional museums are in crisis
Tony Butler's fears for the future
Wednesday 14 January 2026 | opinions from the world of museums, galleries, heritage and art
Happy Wednesday.
It’s my first mid-week edition of the year! A reminder: every Wednesday I send you a special edition that alternates between a behind-the-scenes interview with a leading figure, and an opinion column by a guest writer.
2026 kicks off with the opinion column. Tony Butler is one of the UK’s most prominent regional museum directors and a vocal champion of civic museums. But in his 500-word Take Five Hundred column below he is clear: these institutions are in crisis and need urgent action to survive.
And if your new year’s resolution is to read more about art and culture, then you’re in for a treat with today’s Hot List. I’ve rounded-up the best new books heading our way in the coming year.
I’ll be back on Friday with your news digest.
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Take Five Hundred
An opinion column — in 500 words — by a guest writer.
💬 Regional museums are in crisis. We must act now to save them
by Tony Butler OBE | Executive Director of Derby Museums
It’s hard not to feel like a museum version of a country church mouse as announcements are made of new openings in London. The V&A’s Storehouse and anticipated East Museum in Stratford, two £150m donations for a new wing at the National Gallery, and the repurposing of Smithfield market as the London Museum, to name but a few.
That’s not to say that new developments haven’t happened in the regions. Last year, Norwich Castle, Preston’s Harris Museum and Carlisle’s Tullie House Museum all underwent beautiful transformations.
And regional museums continue to be entrepreneurial too. My own organisation’s collaboration with the National Gallery resulted in the current Joseph Wright of Derby exhibition — of the 20 works featured, 17 are from Derby Museums collections. (This year the show travels to Derby with the triumphant return of Wright’s masterpiece A Bird in the Air Pump, going on show here for the first time in 80 years.) Our learning programme is supported by international firms with local presence such as a Rolls Royce and Vaillant. In 2026, a new collaboration with prestige textile manufacturer John Smedley will explore sustainable fashion.
But despite the innovations, the reality is that regional museums remain in crisis. The vast majority face financial precarity which has a slow, corrosive effect on their work. Many have reduced opening hours, public programming and temporary exhibitions, or have put off hiring new staff. Many — including Derby — saw fewer visitors in 2025.
Last year’s Museum Renewal Fund administered by Arts Council England (ACE) provided some respite, but the trajectory remains downward. Most regional museum leaders have been muddling through hoping for something to turn up. But there’ll come a point when the Mr Micawber school of management will become untenable.
For a resilient and sustainable model for regional museums, the starting point must be the principle of access to the best cultural heritage for people in the place where they live.
It also requires a more equitable funding regime. People living in Greater London benefit nearly ten times more from revenue investment in museums than those living elsewhere. In 2024/25, spend per head in London was around £47, whilst outside the capital it was just under £6.
There’s no quick and easy way to create a resilient ecology for museums in England without a policy-led approach. The recent Hodge review hints at this:
“ACE should work with DCMS [Department for Culture] and the whole museum sector (including those national museums funded directly by DCMS) to develop a strategic framework and create a specific long-term plan for museums.”
According to an Art Fund/More in Common survey, 80% of Britons want funding maintained or increased for local museums. My hope for 2026 is that we capitalise on public and political acknowledgement that local museums are a key provider of public good, and that they’re essential to the social infrastructure of every UK town and city.
If we don’t, museums which have been a feature of our public realm and have enriched people’s lives for decades, even centuries, will be gone for good.
— Tony Butler OBE is Executive Director of Derby Museums which includes the award winning Museum of Making. From 2004 to 2013 he was Director of the Museum of East Anglian Life (now Food Museum) in Suffolk. Tony was awarded an OBE for services to the Arts in the King’s New Year Honours List 2025.
— Wright of Derby: From the Shadows runs at the National Gallery until 10 May 2026. It will open at the Derby Museum and Art Gallery on 13 June 2026.
The Hot List
Here’s my picks of the seven best new art books to read or gift in 2026. They can all be pre-ordered right now (so you don't miss out when they’re released!)
Each book has been independently selected by me. But if you buy through these links, 10% of your purchase price will be donated towards supporting this newsletter, and an additional 10% will be donated to Britain’s independent bookshops. All at no extra cost to you.
📚 Drawing: Antony Gormley | by Antony Gormley
Published by Thames & Hudson on 23 April 2026
Sir Antony Gormley is one of Britain's most famous living sculptors. This upcoming book is a major insight into an important part of his practice. The beautifully illustrated publication is a comprehensive overview of Gormley’s drawings from 1980 to the present, with insightful texts from the artist himself alongside major contributors from other experts, including author Jeanette Winterson. Over 400 works are illustrated in its pages, many of which have never been seen or published before. Expect Gormley’s deeply personal insights throughout. ✏️ Pre-order Drawing: Antony Gormley now
📚 The Secrets of Painting: The Hidden Art of the Masterpiece from Prehistory to Today by Lachlan Goudie
Published by Thames & Hudson on 02 April 2026
Penned by acclaimed artist and BBC broadcaster Lachlan Goudie, this fascinating new book explores how twenty of the greatest paintings in human history were first created — from a blank surface to the finishing brushstroke. These range from masterpieces on canvas such as Van Eyck’s Arnolfini Portrait, to the 36,000-year-old cave paintings at Chauvet, and via the frescoes inside Italy’s stunning 14th-century Arena Chapel. Readers will learn how these twenty ‘creative big bangs’ reverberated across generations and continents, helping to transform the story of art itself. 🎨 Buy the Secrets of Paintings here
📚 Andy Warhol: The Complete Textiles and Fashion by Paul Maréchal
Published by Prestel on 10 March 2026
A truly landmark publication as it’s the very first to document Andy Warhol’s work in textiles and fashion in its entirety. Spanning more than three decades, the book highlights Warhol’s inventive use of printed fabrics and wearable design. From roller-printed cottons and border patterns of the 1950s, to screen-printed garments in the ’70s and ’80s, these works reveal the foundations of his Pop aesthetic. There’s over 200 illustrations and many are previously unpublished. This book is essential for Warhol admirers as we approach the centenary of his birth. 📚 Grab your copy of Andy Warhol: The Complete Textiles and Fashion
📚 Anni Albers: A Life by Nicholas Fox Weber
Published by Yale University Press on 23 June 2026
Anni Albers was a pioneer of twentieth-century modernism and is known for her textile designs. This is the first major biography on her life and work, and it draws on personal conversations with Albers from the 1970s up until her death in 1994. Unprecedented archival research has shaped it too. A major strand explores her complex relationship with her world-renowned husband, Josef Albers. At 408 pages, this is a definitive telling of the story of the groundbreaking modern artist. 🔗 Pre-order Anni Albers: A Life
📚 Tracey Emin: A Second Life by Alvin Li and Maria Balshaw (editors)
Published by Tate Publishing on 26 February 2026
Published to accompany the largest retrospective of Dame Tracey Emin’s career coming to Tate Modern this spring, this full-and-fierce publication broadens the Emin story seen in the show. It celebrates her raw and confessional approach as she poses profound questions on love, trauma, and autobiography. At 280-pages, the catalogue reproduces career-defining sensations — such as the Turner Prize-nominated My Bed — alongside works never seen before. You can pre-order it right now in hardback and paperback. 🛌 Buy Tracey Emin: A Second Life here
📚 Lucian Freud: Drawing into Painting by Sarah Howgate (editor)
Published by National Portrait Gallery Publications on 12 February 2026
A huge 224-page book accompanies the National Portrait Gallery’s exhibition exploring the drawings of the great Lucian Freud. This catalogue traces the unconventional path from his drawing practice to his painting, and back again. It features conversations with David Dawson, Freud’s close friend and assistant, and Bella Freud, the artist’s daughter. There’s also insightful essays by writer and curator Catherine Lampert, British Museum drawings curator Isabel Seligman, and acclaimed novelist Colm Tóibín, who all further illuminate Freud’s world and legacy. 📚 Lucian Freud: Drawing into Painting is available here
📚 Colour by Francesca Herrick
Published by the National Gallery Group on 02 June 2026
This book might be small, but it’s perfectly formed — and it will open your eyes to the evocative power of colour in art. Part of a new series of bite-sized but exquisite thematic hardbacks from the National Gallery launching this summer, this publication tells the story of colour from dazzling gold to cobalt blue, highlighting developments such as the use of rare pigments in medieval altarpieces and the invention of the paint tube that enabled Impressionists to work outdoors. 🌈 Grab a copy of Colour from the National Gallery
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Really powerful piece laying out the numbers so starkly. The £47 vs £6 per capita split basically locks regional museums into a perpetual survial mode where they can't plan anything ambitous beyond next quarter. I've noticed the same pattern in US funding where coastal institutions get venture-scale backing while regional ones operate like bootstrap startups. The social infrastructure framing is spot on though, because once these places close, the community memory and gathering space vanishes way faster than anyone expects.