A raft of key UK cultural figures were named in the King’s Birthday Honours List with the artist Antony Gormley appointed Companion of Honour, the highest award. The accolade for the Angel of the North sculptor comes after he was knighted in the 2014 New Year Honours for services to arts, having previously been appointed OBE.
Early last year Gormley unveiled an abstract 12ft steel sculpture commemorating the Second World War code-breaker Alan Turing at Cambridge University. He also donated art worth half a million pounds to the Labour party ahead of the UK general election on 4 July last year.
Tim Reeve, the deputy director of the Victoria and Albert Museum and the driving force behind the recently launched V&A East Storehouse, was awarded a CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire). Alison Myners, the former chair of the Royal Academy Trust, which manages the funds of the London institution, also received a CBE.
Alex Farquharson, the director of Tate Britain, and Adam Lowe, the founder of the digital heritage preservation company Factum Foundation, were awarded OBEs (Officer of the order of the British Empire).
Mark Bills, the former director of Gainsborough’s house in Sudbury, was awarded an MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire). Another MBE recipient is Camilla Hampshire, the former museum manager of the Royal Albert Memorial Museum and Art Gallery in Exeter. Timothy Shaw, the co-founder of the arts and mental health charity Hospital Rooms, was also made an MBE.
The philanthropists Hans Rausing and his sister Anna Rausing, whose family made their fortune developing Tetra Pak food-packaging, were given a knighthood and a damehood. Hans Rausing has supported projects at the Royal Academy of Arts and the National Gallery in London.
The awards are handed out twice a year—at New Year and then again in June on the monarch’s official birthday.