Cullinan is energetic leader that is needed for besieged institution
SO, AT just 46 years old, Dr Nicholas Cullinan, hitherto the director of the National Portrait Gallery, has been appointed to take over at the crisisbeset British Museum.
I thought something might be up when I messaged him about this earlier this year, and, unusually (typically, he’s charm incarnate), he didn’t reply. Perhaps he was still haggling over the small print.
Well, Nick, congrats. But, also, try to get some rest, before you start this summer. Because the task you’re taking on would make even Hercules, that labour-smashing Greek hero, blanch.
While there was concern, when the gossip-mill started grinding out contenders a few months ago, that no women were obviously in the frame, I understand why, in the end, the museum’s trustees picked Cullinan.
Last year, with aplomb, he achieved what he was appointed, in 2015, to deliver at the NPG: a top-to-bottom renovation of the existing building and rehang of the permanent collection, bringing it up-to-date.
He proved himself in two ways that would have been attractive to the British Museum’s board. First, he was brilliant at raising bucket-loads of cash (in total, the redevelopments cost £41.3 million).
Second, when it came to rethinking the collection, he didn’t fall into the trap – as Tate Britain had done – of berating the historical art under his care, to chime with our iconoclastic, anti-imperialist times. The approach he adopted was, I felt, elegantly respectful as well as 21st-century.
In other words, he managed not to antagonise people on either side of the so-called culture wars – which should stand him in good stead when it comes to those elephant-in-the-room issues at the British Museum (concerning, principally, the future of the Parthenon Sculptures, but also what its policy should be regarding the restitution of contested items in the collection).
Whoever was going to succeed the outgoing director Hartwig Fischer needed to have a politician’s glozing instinct, as well as a fundraising superpower; that instinct will also be required while dealing with the museum’s powerful chair, the former chancellor George Osborne, who has been keener than most in such roles to seek out the limelight. Is Cullinan strong enough to resist Osborne, if necessary? Will Osborne now stand back?
There are other question marks, too. It is unclear whether Cullinan – an art historian by training – will be able to rouse the British Museum’s crestfallen staff; following last year’s scandal concerning a curator who allegedly stole up to 2,000 objects from the collection, morale remains on the floor.
And then there is Osborne’s
£1 billion refurbishment-and-redisplay “masterplan”, for which Cullinan will be required to raise many hundreds of millions of pounds.
During his time at the NPG, he won praise after a £1 million donation from the American Sackler family allegedly responsible for the US opioid epidemic was withdrawn; in short, he took a stand.
Recently, however, the British Museum announced that it would accept a 10-year, £50million partnership with BP.
How can Cullinan – under whose watch, in 2022, the NPG announced the end of its own, 30-year partnership with BP – make the case, to those who oppose it, for continuing with this deal? We may be about to find out how steadfast his scruples really are.