Maria Balshaw Resigns as Tate Director

Maria Balshaw will step down as director of the Tate in spring 2026 and a Tracey Emin solo show, which she is co-curating, will be her swan song.

"I now feel it is the right time to pass on the baton to the next director," she said in a statement.

Balshaw arrived at the Tate in 2007, when she succeeded its longstanding director, Nick Serota.

A tough act to follow, Balshaw's achievements included ambitious shows, not least Steve McQueen's Tate Britain commission Year 3, which featured the portraits of hundreds of school children from across London.

Boosting attendance by young people was a challenge close to her heart, as it had been at the Whitworth Gallery in Manchester before she took the top job in London.

Under her leadership, Tate continued to develop its international partnerships, in particular in Asia.

Balshaw thanked the colleagues and artists that she has worked with although during her tenure things did not always run smoothly.

She had to steer the Tate group through the Covid pandemic. She also had to manage the consequences of falling visitor attendance, oversee redundancies and gain permission from the UK government to run a budget deficit.

Her legacy will include boosting the representation of works by female artists and artists of color in the Tate collection, launching the revamp of Tate Liverpool in the north of England and in St Ives in Cornwall the restoration of Barbara Hepworth's studio, a former dance hall.