The past year has seen plenty of news in the museum sphere. Some of it marked beginnings, some marked endings. Some news was great; some, not so much.

From New York to London and from Rio to Hong Kong, directors were on the move, patrons bestowed enormous gifts, and new institutions opened their doors while others shuttered. 

Here, in chronological order, are the big events of the year in museums. 

Nicholas Cullinan Takes Over at the British Museum After Theft Scandal

Nicholas Cullinan. Photo: © Zoë Law.

After running London’s National Portrait Gallery for a decade, including overseeing a $52 million renovation, Nicholas Cullinan moves a nine-minute bike ride to the British Museum, a 271-year-old institution sorely in need of upkeep due to problems including on a leaky roof. He’ll also deal with the aftermath of a scandal in which a former staffer is charged with stealing about 1,800 objects and selling them on eBay. Ironically, another challenge will be coping with those who want to remove some of the museum’s treasures in a different fashion: calls continue for the restitution of the Parthenon Marbles to Greece and the Benin Bronzes to Nigeria.

After a Devastating Fire, Brazil’s Oldest Museum Calls for Donations—and Gets a Big One

One of the fossils donated to the National Museum of Brazil. Photo: Handerson Oliveira. Courtesy Museu Nacional/UFRJ.

Call it the museum version of a Bat Signal. Devastated by a 2018 fire, the 200-year-old National Museum of Brazil in Rio de Janeiro joined forces this spring with Rio-based nonprofit Instituto Inclusartiz, major fossil collector Burkhard Pohl, and Pohl’s Swiss company, Interprospekt Group. Together, they put out a call to collectors, science enthusiasts, and the cultural community to make donations and long-term loans to begin rebuilding its collection. To get the ball rolling, Pohl handed over some 1,104 fossils, some discovered in Brazil. Before the blaze, the museum had a collection of some 20 million artifacts, making it the largest national history museum in Latin America.

Hong Kong Arts Hub Faces ‘Unfair’ Closures Amid Funding Crisis

West Kowloon Cultural District. Courtesy of West Kowloon Cultural District Authority

When the plan for the West Kowloon Cultural District (WKCD), home to M+ and the Hong Kong Palace Museum, was finalized, it was one of the most deep-pocketed public art projects. When it opened to fanfare in 2021, four years behind schedule and amid ballooning costs, it was already facing increased government censorship. Now, WKCD is under serious financial threat, relying on short-term loans to stay afloat. Henry Tang, the chair of the cultural district’s authority board, said in May that the district’s cash resources would be depleted by the middle of 2025. Museum hours may be cut and admissions fees hiked. The clock is ticking.

Brauer Museum Shutters Amid Deaccessioning Controversy

Courtesy Valparaiso University.

The Brauer Museum, at Indiana’s Valparaiso University, finds itself with pricier paintings than it can handle, namely canvases by Frederic Edwin Church, Childe Hassam, and Georgia O’Keeffe, worth as much as $15 million between them. At the same time, enrollment is down, the university faces a $9 million deficit, dorms are outdated, and high-profile paintings are getting targeted by soup-flinging climate change protestors. The university’s proposed solution? Sell the paintings, lay off the museum staff, and close the institution indefinitely. In the face of lawsuits, the school’s management argues that since the Brauer isn’t part of any national museum organizations—it’s really not even a museum. An inventive argument, perhaps, but a bad look. (The Brauer quietly reopened in November with ex-director Gregg Hertzlieb hired to work part-time. A museum spokesperson said there were “no further confirmed plans” for the museum.)

Snoop Dogg Was High But Attendance Was Low at the Louvre During the Paris Olympics

Snoop Dogg attending the Prelude to The Paris Games 2024 at the Vuitton Foundation in Paris, France, 2024. Photo: Aurore Marechal / Abacapress.com / Alamy Live News.

It was a busy 12 months at Paris’s Musée du Louvre, which started off the year by hiking admission fees for the first time in seven years, ahead of the arrival in Paris of the Summer Olympic Games. The museum hosted yoga sessions and mounted a show celebrating the history of the Games. French artist JR carried the torch into the venerable institution, and rapper Snoop Dogg paid the museum a funny after-hours visit. It wasn’t all great news: the museum saw attendance drop some 22 percent over the same period from last year, perhaps due to safety-related measures. But fear not. Management is sure that all the exposure will pay off for what’s already the world’s most-visited museum.

The Whitney Museum Anoints the Curators of its Next Biennial

Drew Sawyer and Marcela Guerrero will be the 2026 Whitney Biennial curators at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. Photo by Bryan Derballa.

One of America’s most closely watched recurring exhibitions is the Whitney Museum of American Art’s Biennial exhibition, so curating it is an incredibly plum gig. It goes sometimes to guests, sometimes to insiders, and this time, staffers Marcela Guerrero and Drew Sawyer have been given the nod to helm the 2026 edition. Guerrero has been an assistant curator at the New York institution since 2017, organizing an acclaimed 2022 exhibition of Puerto Rican art. She rose to the role of senior curator, the first Latina in the post, in 2022. Photography curator Sawyer has been with the institution only since 2023, and previously held curatorial positions at the Brooklyn Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Columbus Museum of Art.

Harvard Rejects Calls to Rename Arthur M. Sackler Museum

Protestors staging a “die-in” at Harvard’s Arthur M. Sackler Museum. Photo by Ben Roberts. Courtesy of PAIN.

Sometimes doing nothing can generate as much news as doing something, as was the case with Harvard University’s leadership this summer. Institutions the world over have been stripping the Sackler name from their buildings since 2018, when artist Nan Goldin launched an advocacy organization called Sackler P.A.I.N. in an effort to hold responsible the Sackler family, owners of Purdue Pharma, for aggressively (and deceitfully) marketing OxyContin and thus contributing to the deadly opioid crisis. Harvard students demanded the removal of the name of Arthur M. Sackler from a Harvard museum, but the university saw an out: Arthur wasn’t involved in the making of OxyContin, so the name stays, at least for now.

Victoria Siddall Will Be the First Woman to Head London’s National Portrait Gallery

Victoria Siddall by Benjamin McMahon ©️ Benjamin McMahon

Who’s taking over for outgoing National Portrait Gallery director Nicholas Cullinan? None other than Victoria Siddall, the first woman appointed to the role in the museum’s 168-year history. Siddall is widely respected for her 18 years with the Frieze art fair, where she established Frieze Masters and oversaw the fair’s global expansion. She brings heaps of nonprofit experience too, having since 2012 been board chair of London’s Studio Voltaire, which she led through a £2.8 million ($3.5 million) capital redevelopment campaign. She has also worked with Tate as a strategic advisor since 2022, and from 2023–24 she was a trustee of the National Portrait Gallery, having previously served on the museum’s reopening committee.

After Three Decades, MoMA’s Director Shows Himself Out

Glenn D. Lowry at the Museum of Modern Art in April. Photo: Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images for Museum of Modern Art.

Glenn Lowry, director of New York’s Museum of Modern Art since 1995 (when Coolio’s “Gangsta’s Paradise” ruled the airwaves), revealed in September that he would leave the immensely powerful job in 2025. During his tenure, MoMA absorbed Queens’ P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center (in 2000), undertook not one but two major expansions (2004 and 2019), and grew its endowment from $200 million to $1.7 billion. Speculation abounds on not only where Lowry will head next (consultant to a mega-gallery?) but also about who might step into his enormous shoes (Melissa Chiu? Thelma Golden? Franklin Sirmans?). Watch this space.

Frick Collection Names Axel Rüger Its New Director

Axel Rüger, next leader of the Frick Collection, New York. Photo by Cat Garcia, courtesy of the Frick Collection, New York.

As the Frick Collection, New York’s beloved jewel box of a museum, winds up to reopen next year after extensive renovations and expansion, its director for 11 years, Ian Wardropper, announced his retirement after a half-century-long institutional career. Taking his place will be Alex Rüger, who has previously served as head of London’s Royal Academy of Arts and of Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum, as well as curator of 17th- and 18th-century Dutch paintings, an area of strength for the Frick, at London’s National Gallery. “The Frick is a uniquely special place, and there is not another museum in the world quite like it,” Rüger said.

ICA Miami Snaps Up the Neighboring De La Cruz Collection Building

The former home of the Carlos and Rosa de la Cruz collection, now part of the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami. Photo: Jill Peters, courtesy Miami Design District.

Things happened fast when Miami arts patron Rosa de la Cruz died in February: selections from her collection went to auction in May, and in October, the Institute of Contemporary Art Miami shelled out $25 million to acquire the building where she and her husband Carlos had displayed their holdings and hosted art pilgrims during Basel week. Just steps away from the ICA’s Aranguren + Gallegos Arquitectos-designed home, the warehouse-style facility will afford the ICA some 30,000 square feet, doubling its gallery space in which to show artists from Louise Bourgeois to Nicolas Party and Betye Saar.

The Hotly Anticipated Grand Egyptian Museum Kinda Opens for a Trial Run

Inside the Grand Egyptian Museum during its trial run, 2024. Photo: Khaled Desouki/AFP via Getty Images.

Egypt, home to the only extant ancient wonder of the ancient world, will soon be home to one of the globe’s newest wonders: the Grand Egyptian Museum, which holds the world’s greatest collection of the territory’s artifacts. Located not far from the Giza Plateau, it’s often called “the Fourth Pyramid of Giza” for its classical shape. Sprawling over some 117 acres, it will be the nation’s largest museum. Though construction began as far back as 2002, it had only a soft opening this October, when 4,000 visitors got a sneak peek at parts of the 500,000 square-meter mega-structure, which has cost over $1 billion and counting.

The National Gallery of Art Names Darren Walker Its First Black President

Darren Walker. Photo: Simon Leuthi.

The United States got its first Black president in 2008, and now the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., notches the same accomplishment. Darren Walker, the longtime head of New York’s Ford Foundation and a member of the board at the National Gallery since 2019, has ascended to the position of the museum’s president, the first African American to serve in the post. The 87-year-old institution credits him with strengthening philanthropic support for the institution and deepening its commitment to sustainability. While head of the Ford, a powerful international social justice nonprofit, he has established a Ford-funded acquisition program for the museum and supported the 2022 exhibition “Afro-Atlantic Histories.” He replaces Mitchell Rales, who will remain on the board. 

British Museum Receives Donation Worth $1.2 Billion—the Largest Gift in U.K. Museum History

The British Museum. Photo: Daniel Leal / AFP via Getty Images.

It’s not every day that a revered national institution nabs the biggest gift in the nation’s history, but that is what happened in November, when the British Museum notched a gift of 1,700 rare Chinese ceramics worth a truly astonishing £1 billion ($1.27 billion), making it the most valuable gift to a museum in U.K. history. The Sir Percival David Foundation gift means that the museum will hold one of the most important collections of Chinese ceramics of any public institution outside the Chinese-speaking world, bolstering an already strong collection of Chinese antiquities.

The Brooklyn Museum Turns 200

The Brooklyn Museum in New York, 2024. Photo: Roy Rochlin / Getty Images.

It’s also not every year that a major city’s encyclopedic museum turns 200, but the Brooklyn Museum hit that landmark this year. With a logo redesign and splashy shows like selections from the collection of Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys and a rollicking survey of artists from the borough, the museum is celebrating in style. Director Anne Pasternak even stopped in at Artnet News and spoke with editor Min Chen to mark the occasion on the Art Angle podcast. (That all set off a darker episode that saw vandals hit the homes of Pasternak and board members following police action at pro-Palestinian protests at the museum.)

SFMOMA Has Abruptly Fired Contemporary Art Curator Eungie Joo

Eungie Joo. Photo Heinz Peter Knes, courtesy SFMoMA.

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) unexpectedly terminated contemporary art curator Eungie Joo’s tenure just before the holidays. SFMOMA made Joo its first-ever curator of contemporary art in 2017, one year after completing a massive expansion. She had previously served in high-profile roles at REDCAT in Los Angeles and New York’s New Museum, as well as curating Korea’s pavilion at the 2009 Venice Biennial and the 2015 Sharjah Biennial.

She curated SFMOMA’s iteration of Pacita Abad’s first-ever retrospective, which opened at the museum last year, and worked directly with Kara Walker on a massive moving sculptural installation titled Fortuna and the Immortality Garden (Machine), which achieved critical acclaim this past year.

According to one person with direct experience, who worked for Joo more than a decade ago, she could be harsh to the point of abuse, even yelling at her subordinates in public places.

Joo did not respond to requests for comment regarding what may have caused her termination.