Nicholas Cullinan to Helm British Museum

Art historian Nicholas Cullinan has been appointed director of the British Museum. Cullinan joins the beleaguered London institution from the city’s National Portrait Gallery, which he hasledsince 2015. Beginning this summer, he will fill the post leftvacantlast August by Hartwig Fischer. Fischer hastened hisplanned exitfrom the museum amid a furor over hishandlingof thealleged theftby an employee of more than 1,800 valuable objects from the institution’s collection, many of which were offered for sale on eBay.

“The trustees chose Nicholas Cullinan as the new director of the British Museum because he brings proven leadership today and great potential for tomorrow,” said British Museum chair George Osborne in a statement. “He has shown his capacity as director of the National Portrait Gallery to oversee both a major physical renovation and a compelling renewal of purpose in a way that doesn’t take sides, but brings people together—and won universal acclaim. We believe he can achieve this, and more, on the bigger scale of the British Museum as we undertake a once-in-a-generation redevelopment.” Osborne additionally thanked interim director Mark Jones, who this past Octoberannouncedthat the museum would digitize its entire collection in order to stave off future larceny.

Cullinan will face a full plate when he arrives to the museum. In addition to dealing with the continued fallout from the suspected internal thefts, he will need to address Greece’s increasingly irritated calls for the return of the Parthenon Marbles held in the institution’s collection, as well as the demand, issuing forth from multiple corners of the globe, that the museum repatriate its Benin bronzes. Additionally, he will need to spearhead the campaign to raise funds for the “once-in-a-generation redevelopment” cited by Osborne in his remarks above. Then there are the museum’s contested ties to BP, which it was thought to have cut last summer, but which seem to be as strong as ever, given the fact that the oil-and-gas conglomerate is partly funding the upcoming refurbishment.

Calling the institution “one of the greatest museums in the world,” Cullinan in a statement described his appointment as an “honor,” saying, “I look forward to joining its wonderful and dedicated staff and to work with its hugely impressive board in leading it into a new chapter. This will encompass the most significant transformations, both architectural and intellectual, happening in any museum globally, to continue making the British Museum the most engaged and collaborative it can be.”