Maria Balshaw, the outgoing director of Tate, has waded into the debate about introducing admission charges at UK national museums for overseas visitors. “The British Museum and the V&A, in particular, hold the best of many other nations’ art and culture,” Balshaw told The Financial Times. “What does it say to people from the rest of the world if we say, ‘We’ve got your stuff, but we’re going to charge you to come in’? I don’t like that idea.”
The idea of charging admission at the UK’s leading museums was mooted by the ex-interim director of the British Museum, Mark Jones, in 2024, a suggestion that was met with scepticism by many museum professionals including Tristram Hunt of the Victoria and Albert Museum. In 2024 a report published by the Cultural Policy Unit—an independent UK think tank—said that introducing admission charges for international visitors at national museums would be “logistically complex as well as ideologically at odds with the global collections that the UK has accumulated”.
The report pointed out that if charges were to be introduced, the British Museum, for instance, would be placed in the unenviable position of having to charge Nigerian tourists to see the Benin Bronzes, or Egyptians to view the Rosetta Stone.
But other commentators and politicians are advocating for charging overseas visitors. In a recent review of Arts Council England, the Labour peer Margaret Hodge said the UK government should consider introducing admission charges for international visitors to museums and galleries via an ID card system.
At least 80% of revenue raised from a proposed “tourist tax” should be ring-fenced for the culture sector, Balshaw added, helping to maintain free admission for museums in London and the regions.
In the interview, she also urged the UK government to help cash-strapped institutions by offering tax breaks to donors which could in turn boost museum endowment funds. “A modest tax incentive for endowment giving would not be unaffordable, and it would be transformational,” she said. The Tate’s Future Fund endowment, worth £43m at its launch last year, now stands at £55m and has a target of £150m by 2030.
Balshaw steps down this month after nine years in post and her successor will be announced this summer, adds The Financial Times. Candidates in the running include Jessica Morgan, the director of the Dia Art Foundation in New York, and Karin Hindsbo, Tate’s interim director who was formerly director of Tate Modern.
The successful candidate will have to demonstrate that they are “very close to artists and very close to donors” and “constantly plan for shocks and disappointments while planning to thrill and educate”, said a source close to Tate trustees.