Portrait of Bayeux Tapestry Sponsor Igor Tulchinsky Debuts at British Museum Amid IDF Scrutiny

Key facts

• A portrait of Igor Tulchinsky by Jonathan Yeo is on view in the British Museum's Bayeux Tapestry exhibition.
• Tulchinsky is the lead sponsor of the exhibition, having reportedly donated £5m.
• The museum declined to say how the portrait was commissioned or its cost; it was not part of the sponsorship, according to The Art Newspaper.
• Yeo wrote on Instagram that the portrait was commissioned to mark Tulchinsky's sponsorship and will hang for the exhibition's duration.
• Charlotte Appleyard, the museum's director of development, commented on Yeo's post: "You're brilliant and we're very grateful."
• Tulchinsky, born in Belarus and based in the US, founded and heads WorldQuant, which has $17bn in assets; Forbes values his fortune at $1.7bn.
• In 2025 he donated $1m to the Trump-Vance inaugural committee and launched WorldQuant Genesis, an Israel-focused venture capital operation for early-stage deep-tech companies.
• CTech reports WorldQuant Genesis invested in NavAiro, an Israeli defense-tech startup countering low-cost drone swarms, and that Tulchinsky hired former IDF commander Saar Tzur to manage the fund.
• Tulchinsky discussed his support for the show with Appleyard at the Art Business Conference in London, calling the tapestry a "data set" and citing the decapitated heads scene as memorable.
• First public tickets sold out within hours, raising about £2.5m; around one million visitors are expected before the exhibition closes on 11 July 2027.