LONDON.- Tate has announced that Maria Balshaw, who has been Director of Tate since 2017, will step down next year. She will depart in the Spring of 2026 after 9 years of dedicated leadership.

During her tenure, Maria’s vision has been to engage a wider public, making art accessible to all and deepening learning. An early high point in 2019 was Steve McQueen’s Year 3, a collective school portrait of 76,000 seven- and eight-year-olds from across London. In the years since then, she has spearheaded a programme of highly influential exhibitions which have diversified the range of artists and audiences at Tate (including Women in Revolt, Life Between Islands, Leigh Bowery and Emily Kam Kngwarray) and celebrated the leading figures of British and international art in bold new ways (including Cornelia Parker, Isaac Julien, Yoko Ono and most recently Turner & Constable).

Maria has also worked to diversify Tate’s collection, bringing greater gender balance and geographical breadth to new acquisitions. Tate’s collection strategy has embraced indigenous artists, grown Global South representation, and expanded further into textile and ceramic art practices, all to better reflect and shape an ever-changing art ecology.

Under her leadership, Tate has built the largest arts membership in the world. Today there are 150,000 Tate Members and 180,000 16- to 25-year-olds in Tate Collective, an initiative she launched in 2018 to help engage a new generation of art lovers and creatives. Internationally, she has overseen the growth of Tate’s partnerships around the world, sharing Tate’s collection with an ever-wider network of museums and galleries, and nurturing long-term global partnerships to support Tate’s exhibitions, commissions and research.

Beyond Tate, Maria chaired the National Museum Directors Council, helping to secure capital maintenance funding for regional and national museums, as well as emergency support for regional museums. She worked with the Art Fund and Creative Folkestone on the fundraising campaign to secure the creative future of Derek Jarman’s Prospect Cottage and sits on the Advisory Board that protects this precious space. She also served as board member for Factory International, retaining her connection to Manchester, a city she loves.

Her influence at Tate will be felt into the future through the new Clore Garden at Tate Britain, opening in 2026, delivered in partnership with the Royal Horticultural Society and funded by long-term supporter Dame Vivien Duffield. Maria has also worked with the team in Tate Liverpool to undertake a complete transformation of the gallery, opening in 2027, and the team in Tate St Ives to begin the renovation of the Palais de Danse, Barbara Hepworth’s second studio. These major projects will ensure Tate’s future sustainability, deepen community engagement, and strengthen access to Tate’s national collection across the regions. Perhaps her most important legacy is the establishment of an endowment fund for Tate’s long-term financial security, working with Tate’s Chair Roland Rudd, which has secured over £50 million of donations to date and was launched at a gala at Tate Modern earlier this year.

In February 2026, she will curate a career-spanning exhibition celebrating the groundbreaking work of internationally acclaimed artist Dame Tracey Emin at Tate Modern, returning her to her first love: working directly with artists.

Maria Balshaw said: “It has been an absolute privilege to serve as Director of Tate over this last decade and to work with such talented colleagues and artists. With a growing and increasingly diverse audience, and with a brilliant forward plan in place, I feel now is the right time to pass on the baton to a next Director who will take the organisation into its next decade of innovation and artistic leadership. My greatest thrill has always been to work closely with artists, and so it is fitting that Tracey Emin’s exhibition at Tate Modern will be my final project at Tate.”

Roland Rudd, Chair of Tate, said: “Maria has been a trailblazer at Tate. She has never wavered from her core belief – that more people deserve to experience the full richness of art, and more artists deserve to be part of that story. As the home of British art and of international modern and contemporary art, Tate today reflects the audiences we serve and the artists who make up our nation. We engage a wider public than ever before through our own galleries, our digital channels, and our projects in other venues across the UK and the world. Maria has my heartfelt thanks for those achievements and for all her work over the past decade”.