Arise Sir Tristram—V&A director is knighted in UK New Year Honours – The Art Newspaper

The director of the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, Tristram Hunt, has obtained a knighthood within the King’s UK New Years Honours checklist for 2026. Hunt, who has been in put up since 2017, is honoured for “companies to museums”; the “mental and cultural historian” (his personal description posted on LinkedIn) is vocal on points corresponding to implementing a vacationer levy to assist help the UK’s cultural infrastructure. Earlier this 12 months, he oversaw the opening of the V&A East Storehouse in Stratford.

The curator Ekow Eshun, the previous director of the Institute of Up to date Arts in London, luggage an OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire). The artwork historian Marcia Pointon, professor emerita within the historical past of artwork on the College of Manchester, was additionally awarded an OBE. The Edinburgh-based cultural heritage professional Janet Blake and Jo Quinton-Tulloch, the director of the Nationwide Science and Media Museum in Bradford, had been additionally awarded OBEs.

Susan Bowers, director of the Pilgrim Belief which focuses on preserving the UK’s heritage, was made an MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire). Hilary McGrady, the director-general of the Nationwide Belief, was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE). In 2020 McGrady commissioned a controversial report on the belief’s hyperlinks to slavery and colonialism. The awards are handed out twice a 12 months—at New Yr after which once more in June on the monarch’s official birthday.