'Time to pass on the baton': Maria Balshaw to step down as director of Tate next year

Maria Balshaw is to step down as the director of Tate in 2026, after a challenging nine-year tenure during which she steered the organisation through the Covid-19 pandemic and faced fluctuating attendance figures and financial instability.

- Lanre Bakare Art and culture correspondent

Balshaw, who joined as director in June 2017 after a celebrated spell as the leader of the Whitworth in Manchester, said it had been a privilege to serve as director but now was the time for her to move on.

She said: “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 the next director. My greatest thrill has always been to work closely with artists, and so it is fitting that Tracey Emin’s exhibition will be my final project at Tate.”

Balshaw was described as a “trail blazer” by the Tate chair, Roland Rudd, who said 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”.