Godfrey Worsdale, the director of BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead, will leave his post in July 2015 to take up the role of director at The Henry Moore Foundation, in Leeds.

“Godfrey has made an outstanding contribution to BALTIC during his seven year tenure as director,” BALTIC chairman Peter Buchan said in a statement. “The strength of his reputation brought the illustrious Turner Prize to BALTIC, the first non-Tate venue to be accorded that privilege in 2011. It was under his guidance that BALTIC was shortlisted as Museum of the Year in 2013 and the gallery earlier this year welcomed its 6 millionth visitor,” he added.

At the Henry Moore Foundation, Worsdale will succeed Richard Calvocoressi, who is retiring after eight years in the role. The foundation was founded by Moore in 1977. Its main responsibilities are preserving Moore’s legacy at his home in Hertfordshire and through exhibitions worldwide.

“The Henry Moore Foundation occupies a unique position in the art world’s ecology; not only in acknowledging Moore’s hugely significant contribution to the development of modernism and the history of sculpture, but also in delivering on his determination to enhance the wider public appreciation of visual art,” Worsdale said in a statement

Like Henry Moore, Godfrey Worsdale grew up in Yorkshire. Trained as an art historian and conservator in London, he began his career at the British Museum in the early 1990s and launched an independent exhibition space in London, called Cultural Instructions, in 1994.

Worsdale moved to Southampton City Art Gallery as curator in 1995, and was promoted to its director in 1998. In 2002 he became founding director of Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, before being appointed director of BALTIC in 2008.