London's newest museum opens
PLUS: Where are Birmingham's masterpieces?
Friday 05 June 2026
What’s happening in museums, galleries, art and heritage
Happy Friday.
How was your week? I know I keep banging on about it, but it’s now summer — my favourite season. The light nights are the tonic we all need.
Also a tonic is the calm, clean air and green expanse of the grounds of Compton Verney in Warwickshire. I’m just back from my first ever visit, and I was wowed by the 120 acres of Capability Brown-designed landscape.
There’s meadows, woodland, nature trails — and perhaps my most-favourite thing: a rope ferry you can use to manually transport yourself across the stunning lake. There’s plenty of art too. The grounds double as a sculpture park for artists including Sarah Lucas and Hew Locke, and the Grade I-listed Georgian mansion at the heart of the site hosts plenty of varied galleries and temporary exhibitions.
The trigger for my visit was to see the current show of exquisite 16th and 17th century Flemish and Dutch drawings by the likes of Rubens, Pieter Bruegel the Elder and Rembrandt.
Over 50 of them are on loan from the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium and have never been seen in Britain before. You might remember that I was lucky enough to get a preview of the drawings in Brussels before they made their journey across the Channel, and I got to hear all about their history with the curator Jane Simpkiss. (You can read all about my trip here). It was wonderful to see these delicate pieces again, in the tranquil surroundings of the British countryside. If you want to escape the horrors of the current world for a bit (who doesn’t?), I recommend you head here.
I’m also not long back from Bruges for the opening of the city’s brand new BRUSK gallery (where I spoke to academic and historian Peter Frankopan who has curated the excellent debut exhibition on medieval history).
I’m very happy to say that on this same trip, I was really thrilled to also get to interview Turner Prize-winning artist Laure Prouvost.
Prouvost has produced a vast four-part fresco for the central staircase of BRUSK. The work — titled The Whispering Walls Rêve — spans a total of 350m², and takes visitors on a journey through the French artist’s creative mind. It takes centerstage in the new museum’s airy and light-filled atrium that all visitors enter.
“It took me a while to figure out how I'm going to tackle it or how am I going to work with the space,” she told me. But she knew from the beginning she wanted it to be a fresco, making it the very first fresco she has ever created in her career. She hoped to craft a sense of Trompe l’oeil (the art of painting to create illusions). “Is it a tapestry? Is it painting? Is it oil? Is it fresco?...it’s a lot of playing [with the visitor]” Prouvost revealed.
You can get really close to it — and there are even nods to her own previous artworks. One particularly caught my eye: the three-headed bird sculpture she created for the Folkestone Triennial in Kent in 2025. It’s just one of the many nods to her career — and the city of Bruges — you can try and spot. Read my full chat with Prouvost here.
Now onto the news!
maxwell
P.S. There’ll be no newsletters next week I’m afraid as I’m away. I’ll be back the following week as normal.
Top stories 🚨
“New mandate” for Arts Council says new Chair
A new Chair has been appointed to the troubled Arts Council England (ACE), the body that distributes taxpayers money to England’s arts organisations.
Former Tate boss Sir Nicholas Serota’s nine-year tenure has ended, and the government has handed the job to Dawn Airey CBE, the former boss of Channel 5.
Airey’s appointment comes after an independent review by the Labour peer Margaret Hodge heavily criticised ACE, saying it was following a strategy that many felt “stifled creativity and innovation.” That strategy — Let’s Create — was officially abandoned last week as a result.
Airey is a veteran TV executive who has also held top jobs at ITV, Sky and Channel 4 (where she was dubbed “Scary Airey”).
Commenting on her appointment, Airey said ACE now has “a clear new mandate” thanks to the Hodge report. She added that “the importance of the Arts Council in championing art and culture has never been more needed,” especially in a world of “increasingly dominant” Al and automation. (Read more)
Quentin Blake museum opens doors
The doors to London’s new illustration museum — and the world’s largest space dedicated to the art form — opened today for the first time.
The £12.5m Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration has been an ambition for Blake for over two decades. In a final surprise, the 93-year-old unveiled a new 5m mural in the venue’s cafe. The new work — titled A Bridge to the Past — explores the history of the New River, an artificial waterway built between London and Hertfordshire in the 1600s. The Centre is located in a formerly derelict 18th and 19th waterworks where this river entered the capital.
The Centre will host three temporary exhibitions at a time, with one always drawn from Blake’s own vast personal archive of works.
In reviews, The Telegraph said that “Blake’s drawings get the permanent home they deserve” while the Financial Times said the Centre was “a playful pleasure” and “a careful, clever adaptation of a range of historic structures.” (Read more)
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UK news 🇬🇧
Summer hours for National Gallery ☀️
The National Gallery is extending its opening hours for the summer. For 8 weeks (from 03 July until 31 August) it will stay open until 19:00 — that's one additional hour each day. The weekly Friday lates — which keep the doors open until 21:00 — will remain. Director Sir Gabriele Finaldi says this will "give visitors more freedom to experience the Gallery at a different pace.” (Read more)
Where are Birmingham’s masterpieces? 🎨
Art historian Ruth Millington has sparked debate over the quality of Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery after its major refurbishment. Writing in the Telegraph, Millington said the venue “seems emptier than ever” with many masterpieces missing from display, and replaced with “insulting caricature[s]” of the city, and displays that “[look] like physically realised AI slop.” Director Sara Wajid defended the venue, saying "the museum isn't only for highly educated art historians.” (Read more)
🔗 Full Op-Ed | Leftist curators ruining museums are not just at work in London | Ruth Millington in the Telegraph
Britain’s 17,000-year-old art 🏴
The oldest cave art in Britain and north-western Europe has been confirmed as being located in a Welsh cave — despite being dismissed as a natural phenomenon for more than a century. Scientists have re-examined red stripes in South Wales cave Bacon Hole, which were first discovered in 1912. They now confirm they are 17,000 year-old-artworks created by humans, and not ‘mineral deposits’ as was incorrectly believed for the past 100 years. (Read more)
Serpentine Pavilion hits quarter century 🛖
This year’s Serpentine Pavilion — its 25th iteration — has been unveiled. Mexican studio Lanza Atelier has created a Serpentine, a snaking brick-walled structure that marks the first of the annual pavilion’s to be built in brick. Open to the public from tomorrow, it will host the Serpentine Gallery’s public programme throughout the summer, including a two-day symposium to commemorate Zaha Hadid, who designed the inaugural pavilion in 2000. (Read more)
Global news 🌎
Netherlands 🇳🇱
The three men who stole a 2,500-year-old Romanian golden helmet in an armed raid on a Dutch museum have been jailed for nearly four years each. “Given the nature and gravity of the offenses, only a substantial prison sentence will suffice,” said the court in Assen. Prosecutors had agreed to call for shorter custodial sentences after striking a plea bargain with two of them to ensure the return of the treasures, which are now back in Romania. One item remains missing. (Read more)
USA 🇺🇸
”A transformative gift” of books by “Surrealism’s most imaginative artists” will go on display at the Museum of Modern Art. The Zell Collection is one of the most significant collections of artists’ books formerly in private hands, and it was donated to MoMA in 2022. Highlights will now be shown for the first time. The Surrealist Book show will explore how books propelled the Surrealist movement forward. There’ll be rare volumes by André Breton, Salvador Dalí, and Max Ernst included. (Read more)
Italy 🇮🇹
Pupils at a high school just metres from the Colosseum in Rome had for years told tales of secret rooms beneath their classrooms. Now archaeologists have confirmed the rumours were true, as a 2nd century Roman villa has been unearthed. Figurative and floral frescos have been found, as well as graffiti suggesting some knew of the structure in the 1940s. “Ten years ago a student told me the story, but I didn’t give it much thought,” said teacher Claudia Marino. (Read more)
USA 🇺🇸
Global mega-gallery Pace has announced it will downsize as its current model is “unfixable.” It will shed 50 of its 135 artists, and will cut 20% of staff. Chief executive Marc Glimcher said: “The whole art gallery art system became too big, too commercial, too impersonal and too corporate.” The news is sending warning signals about the health of the art market, especially for medium-sized galleries. Pace will retain it’s Manhattan flagship gallery though, which it renovated in 2019 for $100 million. (Read more)
🔗 Go deeper | As Pace slashes business, could shrinking be the next growth model? | Melanie Gerlis in the Art Newspaper
News in brief 🗞️
“Suspicious device” causes evacuation
The British Museum was evacuated last weekend after it received “malicious communications” and found a “suspicious device” in a toilet. It came just two days after its controversial postponing of a lecture for Jewish Culture Month. (Full story)
Under 25s get bargain tickets at NPG
The National Portrait Gallery has launched its own version of Tate’s hugely successful Tate Collective scheme. CLUB NPG invites 16-25 year olds to sign up to get £5 tickets for all their temporary exhibitions. (Full story)
Chanel CEO joins BM board
The CEO of Chanel has joined the board of the British Museum. Leena Nair CBE has been appointed by HM The King, the sole Trustee the sovereign can nominate. Chair George Osborne said Nair “is one of our generation's most successful business leaders.” (Full story)
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👀 Last edition’s most clicked stories:
🥇 Government goes soft on soft power council that features V&A Director
🥈 British Library on track after hiring “mistake,” says interim Director
🥉 ACE replaces Let’s Create and vows to fund ‘on basis of quality’
📊 Last week’s poll results | Do you pick your holiday destinations based on their museum, art and culture offerings?
— YES! Exclusively 15%
— It plays a big role in my choices 81% 🏆
— Nah. Culture-free breaks for me 4%
🗳️ This week’s poll |