Maria Balshaw to Depart as Director of London’s Tate

Maria Balshaw to Depart as Director of London’s Tate

Maria Balshaw, who has led London’sTategroup of museums since 2017, has announced that she will step down as director in spring 2026. Balshaw, who previously served as director of the Manchester Art Gallery and the Whitworth Art Gallery, was the first woman to lead the organization, succeeding Nicholas Serota, who helmed Tate for nearly three decades. Her departure comes as Tate struggles to attract the number of visitors it did during the pandemic, and as itreckonswithstaff cutsnecessitated by budget woes.

“It has been an absolute privilege to serve as director of Tate over this last decade and to work with such talented colleagues and artists,” said Balshaw in a statement. “With a growing and increasingly diverse audience, and with a brilliant forward plan in place, I feel now is the right time to pass on the baton to a next director who will take the organization into its next decade of innovation and artistic leadership.”

Tate board chair Roland Rudd in a statement called Balshaw a “trailblazer” who “never wavered from her core belief—that more people deserve to experience the full richness of art, and more artists deserve to be part of that story.”  In a press release, Tate—which encompasses London’s Tate Modern and Tate Britain, as well as the smaller Tate Liverpool and Tate St. Ives—credited Balshaw with diversifying the museums’ audiences, collections, and exhibitions, and with bringing greater gender balance to its acquisitions program. She also expanded visitorship during her tenure, particularly among young audiences. Among the exhibitions she oversaw were “The EY Exhibition: Van Gogh and Britain” (2019), “Sargent and Fashion,” and a retrospective of Yoko Ono (both 2024). Her final exhibition will be “Tracey Emin: A Second Life,” the largest-ever survey of the YBA artist, which she will co-curate alongside Jessica Baxter. The show will run from February 27 to August 31, 2026, at Tate Modern.