British Museum appoints Nicholas Cullinan as new director

Nicholas Cullinan, director of the National Portrait Gallery, has been appointed as the new director of the British Museum, effective later this year. He succeeds interim director Mark Jones, who stepped in after Hartwig Fischer resigned amid a theft scandal involving thousands of missing objects from the Greek and Roman collection. Cullinan previously worked at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Tate Modern. He led a praised renovation of the National Portrait Gallery, which reopened in 2023 after three years. At the British Museum, he plans an 'architectural and intellectual' transformation and aims to make the institution 'the most engaged and collaborative it can be'. Cullinan notably rejected a $1.3 million donation from the Sackler family during his tenure at the National Portrait Gallery. He will now address the unresolved repatriation of the Parthenon Marbles. George Osborne, chair of the British Museum since 2021, praised Cullinan's leadership.