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With news that the University of Southampton’s contemporary art gallery, the John Hansard Gallery, is moving to new purpose-built space in the city centre in May, a new Director has also been announced. Woodrow Kernohan, currently CEO of Ireland’s EVA International biennial art exhibition, will take over from Professor Stephen Foster who is to retire after 30 years. The gallery will have three times its present gallery space as part of the £28.5m Studio 144 arts complex in Southampton’s Guildhall Square. Above: How the gallery will lookImages: courtesy Watts Gallery, University of Roehampton and Sidney Nolan Trust; © British Library; © National Museums Scotland; ©Thierry Bal.Southampton’s Hansard Gallery gets a new home – and a new headIn May, the studio of the Australian painter Sir Sidney Nolan is to open to the public for the fi rst time since he died in 1992, as part of this year’s centenary celebrations of his birth. Nolan bought the idyllic farm estate at The Rodd near Presteigne on the Wales-England border in 1983 and used a 17th-century barn as his studio. It has been restored by the Sidney Nolan Trust, which owns more than 3,000 of his paintings, to become the only gallery devoted to Nolan’s work. The Trust hopes to create an international centre for the arts.Above: Sir Sidney Nolan’s studio was in a converted barnNolan’s studio to open as part of centenary year celebrationsAn ancient Egyptian treasure in the National Museum of Scotland’s collection has been reunited with some of its missing pieces, 160 years after the original piece was accessioned. Two decorated fragments, acquired with the help of the Art Fund and National Museums Scotland Charitable Trust, have been restored to the small cedar, ebony, gold and ivory box, dating from c1427–1400 BC and inscribed for Pharaoh Amenhotep II. The decoration on part of the fragments differs from the box, showing that previous restoration was incorrect.“Palace objects from ancient Egypt are extremely rare, so it’s very exciting for us to be able to confi rm this object’s royal connections,” said Margaret Maitland, Senior Curator of the Ancient Mediterranean at the museum. “Not only does the acquisition of the fragments fi ll a literal gap in the box, it fi lls gaps in our understanding of its story”. The box and fragments will go on display in a new exhibition, The Tomb: Ancient Egyptian Burial, which opens at the National Museum of Scotland on March 31.Below: The Amenhotep II box and fragmentsFragments help to unlock secrets of ancient boxThe Art Fund Museum of the Year award, already the most valuable museum prize in the world at £100,000 for the winner, is to increase the purse by £40,000 in 2017. The extra money will be shared among the four runners-up.“In these uncertain times, museums are a trusted public realm whose collections and programmes can help people make sense of the world we live in, and where we may be going” said the Art Fund’s Director Stephen Deuchar. “Whatever the challenges of the moment, museums and galleries across the UK are forces of innovation”.Art Fund prize up by £40,000Labour MP takes V&A roleTristram Hunt, the Labour MP for Stoke-on-Trent Central, has been appointed as the new head of the Victoria and Albert Museum. He brings widespread expertise across education, industry and politics to the V&A, and a keen awareness of the important role of major public institutions in the UK, having been at the forefront of political, cultural and public life for the last decade. A historian, politician, writer and broadcaster, Hunt is an expert on the 18th and 19th centuries, with a particular focus on Victorian urban history. He has made more than a dozen TV series on subjects including Elgar and Empire, Isaac Newton, and the English Civil War. He was also instrumental in helping to save the Wedgwood Collection in 2014. Hunt commented:“The combination of the power of the collections and expertise of an inspirational team is what makes the V&A the world’s greatest Museum of art, design and performance.”ARTS NEWSwww.nadfas.org.uk NADFAS REVIEW / SPRING 2017 13