BREAKING: Trump's 'fired' Smithsonian Director resigns
Kim Sajet QUITS her role in wake of Trump's criticism
Friday 13 June 2025 | news from museums, galleries, heritage and art, including:
Government boosts Tate Liverpool’s budget 💰
Turner’s teenage watercolour discovered 🖼️
Schools announce Science Museum boycott 🛑
Happy Friday.
I’m typing this after a morning visit to the Tower of London.
I was there to see the newly-revamped Medieval Palace displays, which are located in some of the oldest parts of the Tower. These permanent exhibits have been refreshed with new objects, multi-sensory displays and new soundscapes. All being well I’ll be bringing you more on this in the coming weeks, but suffice to say that a morning exploring the very halls and corridors once roamed by King Henry III, King Edward I, and Eleanor of Provence is a morning well-spent.
It was only my second-ever visit to the Tower. That’s in 16 years of living in London — and thirty-[redacted] years living on this Earth. Which doesn’t feel…very many?? Because, well, I’ve walked past it hundreds of times over the years, and because its one of the most well-known, most historically important buildings in the world. And it’s literally just right there.
Maybe its because it’s a Tourist Destination™ that I haven’t been more often. Most Londoners will tell you that you take the Capital’s sights for granted when you live here, only visiting when people are visiting you (if ever). It’s definitely a universal phenomenon for urban dwellers though — ask the residents in Liverpool, Edinburgh and Belfast, as well as the great capitals from Paris to Washington DC.
But I don’t want to get hit by a bus tomorrow and not have seen some of the great sights London has to offer. No matter how ‘touristy’ they are.
So what are the landmarks I am still to visit? Well I’m sorry to say Historic Royal Palaces (who manage the Tower of London) really haven’t had much business from me. I’ve never been to Kensington Palace, Hampton Court Palace or Kew Palace. In fact my palace tally is very poor, with 0 visits to either Eltham Palace, Alexandra Palace or Windsor Castle.
I’ve never looked around Westminster Abbey or St Paul’s Cathedral, never been aboard IWM’s HMS Belfast, never climbed up to the Sky Garden, and never crossed the threshold of Kenwood House.
I’m sure there are more, but this feels plenty to be getting on with. So here’s to ‘Being A Tourist In Your Hometown Summer.’ Buses dependent.
maxwell
ps. my first revamped mid-week editions landed in your inbox on Wednesday. If you missed it — and my in-depth interview with V&A Deputy Director Tim Reeve on the opening of V&A East Storehouse — you can catch up here.
Top stories 🚨
Government boosts Tate Liverpool’s budget
The cost of redeveloping Tate Liverpool has grown by nearly a fifth.
The gallery was due to reopen this year after a two-year overhaul but struggles to secure the £29.7m budget saw the project timeline extended to 2027. Tate confirmed this week that the total cost has now also grown, up 18% to £35m.
But there was good news as the UK government announced it would give an additional £12m to the project, taking its total contribution to £28.6m (£18.6m from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and £10m from the Levelling Up Fund from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.)
£4.2m has now also been secured from philanthropic donations, and Tate Liverpool said they’re now in a final fundraising stage to secure the remaining £2.15m needed.
Director Helen Legg said: “We’re grateful to the government for this investment and for their vote of confidence.” Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy said “Our support is part of this government's commitment to ensure arts and culture is accessible to everyone right across the country." (Read more)
Smithsonian Director quits after Trump ‘firing’
The Smithsonian has announced it’s conducting a thorough review of all its displays and content “to ensure unbiased content” in what will be interpreted as bowing to pressure from Donald Trump.
The President two weeks ago claimed he was firing Kim Sajet, the Director of the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery. After days of silence, bosses at the world’s biggest museum issued a statement reiterating that they alone retained power over personnel decisions, not the US government.
But while headlines interpreted is as a rebuke to Trump, it’s emerged that in a meeting of the museum’s board on Monday, Smithsonian leader Lonnie Bunch was directed to “make needed changes” to eliminate political influence and bias. This is seen as a response to Trump’s March executive order calling to remove “anti-American ideology.” Bunch later said in an email to staff that “some of our work has not aligned with our institutional values of scholarship, even-handedness and nonpartisanship.”
And breaking news on Friday: Sajet has resigned her role at the National Portrait Gallery. “This was not an easy decision” she said in an email to staff, adding that “I believe that stepping aside is the best way to serve the institution.” Quitting her position will be seen as a victory for the President. (Read more)
Turner’s teenage watercolour discovered
The first ever oil painting exhibited by JMW Turner has been rediscovered after being lost for over 150 years.
The painting — now identified as being Turner’s The Rising Squall, Hot Wells, from St Vincent’s Rock, Bristol — was created when the artist was just 17. It was first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1793, and was last shown in Tasmania in 1858. Since then, it was wrongly mislabelled as both a watercolour, and as by ‘a follower’ of obscure English artist Julius Caesar Ibbetson. The lost artwork was sold at auction under the incorrect attribution with an asking price of £600-£800 last year.
It was only when restoration was carried out after this sale that Turner’s signature on the canvas was uncovered.
It’s now due to be sold at Sotheby’s in London next month, with an estimate of £200,000-£300,000. It’s display at the auction house will also mark its first public exhibition in 167 years.
Tate Britain have confirmed it will be included in their upcoming blockbuster exhibition on Turner and his contemporary John Constable. (Read more)
UK news 🇬🇧
Royal Armouries is homeowner after 700 years ⚔️
The Royal Armouries has purchased outright the land it sits on thanks to a £12m loan from the British government. It gives the national museum full control over its site for the first time since it established its base in Leeds thirty years ago, and the first time it’s owned its own home in its 700 year history. Director Nat Edwards said “the next step is to secure investment to substantially increase the capacity to grow conference, event and hotel” space on the land. (Read more)
Chancellor cuts culture’s budget 📉
The chair of Parliament’s Culture Select Committee has said there are “huge unanswered questions” over how the Department for Culture will manage a real-terms cut in its budget, which was announced in the Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ Spending Review this week. DCMS will see its budget cut by 1.4%, as well as a 15% cut in its staffing. The Committee Chair Dame Caroline Dinenage said the plans were “the wrong choice by the Chancellor.” (Read more)
Schools announce Science Museum boycott 🛑
Four London schools have pledged to ban trips to the Science Museum, according to a new group campaigning for an education boycott of the museum. The group launched their campaign with a protest outside the venue, and they’re backed by Britain’s biggest eduction union the National Education Union. They say the museum’s sponsorship deals with oil company BP and Adani Green Energy are “greenwashing” and “destroying our children’s futures.” They want more schools to ban taking their pupils. (Read more)
Visitor surge to celebrate Dickens centenary 📚
🚨 maxwell museums EXCLUSIVE 🚨
Over 1,000 visitors came to the Charles Dickens Museum’s centenary celebrations on Monday. The museum confirmed the numbers to me, adding it was well over double their traditional busiest day each year — Christmas Eve — which usually gets around 400 people. Visitors queued down the street to take advantage of the free admission — on the exact anniversary the museum was first opened in 1925 — and were treated to readings by surviving members of the Dickens family, including great-great-great grandson Ollie Dickens reading from Oliver Twist. (Read more)
Global news 🌎
France 🇫🇷
Paris’s Musée d’art moderne is getting a major single donation of 180 artworks thanks to the generosity of French gallerist Kamel Mennour. In total 45 artists will be included in the donation, including leading names Anish Kapoor, Ugo Rondinone and Alicja Kwade. Mennour said he was inspired to do it be to give back to the museum “which has offered me and my city such great joys.” An exhibition of the pieces will be staged at the museum in 2027. (Read more)
USA 🇺🇸
Two of the most pivotal documents President Abraham Lincoln ever signed are expected to sell for millions at auction later this month. A Lincoln-signed copy of the 13th amendment which abolished slavery nationwide in 1865 — one of only 15 surviving copies — is expected to fetch $8-12m at Sotheby’s in New York. The 1863 Emancipation Proclamation is estimated at $3m. The record for any Lincoln document is $3.8 million. (Read more)
Australia 🇦🇺
The largest exhibition of the Terracotta Warriors ever staged in Australia opens later this month in Perth’s WA Museum Boola Bardip museum. With 225 artefacts, 40% have never left China before. There’ll also be ten of the lifesized clay soldiers — the maximum number permitted to leave China. “It’s hard to put into words how significant this is”museum CEO Alec Coles said. “There is nothing like it anywhere.” (Read more)
News in brief 🗞️
Huge visitor figures for Kiefer
The just-closed joint Anselm Kiefer retrospective at Amsterdam’s Van Gogh and Stedelijk museums drew 340,000 visitors. Bosses said “it overtook our expectations” including by drawing the Van Gogh Museum’s largest Dutch audience in a decade. (More)
RA’s summer shindig returns
It was celeb-central at the Royal Academy’s opening party for their Summer Exhibition. Guests including Helena Bonham Carter, Dame Kristin Scott Thomas and Mia Regan (no, me neither) were treated to the usual variable art and, er, a mac ‘n’ cheese van. (More)
Dockyard Museum to get immersive revamp
Bristol’s SS Great Britain heritage site is to redevelop its Dockyard Museum thanks to £1m in new funding which signals “a visionary new direction” for the venue. It’s going to be “an immersive experience.” Who needs boring old objects eh? (More)
Pay settlement at South Kensington’s museums
Long running strikes at the V&A, Science and Natural History museums will end after externally-employed security guards secured pay increases up to 23%. A union boss said their members had “forced some of the UK’s most powerful cultural institutions to listen.” (More)
Rare Lovelace images on display
All three of the only known photographs of computer pioneer Ada Lovelace will go on rare (and brief) public display next week. They can be seen at Bonhams in London ahead of an auction of the “exceptionally important” 1843 images. (More)
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