‘I won’t conform to political agendas’

Since then the BM has attracted further criticism — at least from anti-fossil-fuel campaigners — when its trustees (chaired by the former chancellor of the exchequer George Osborne) accepted a £50 million donation from BP to fund its masterplan, a transformation of the building. Meanwhile, the debate about whether the BM should retain the Elgin Marbles and other “contested” treasures rumbles on. It’s hard to think of another job in the arts world with quite so many metaphorical banana skins, tripwires, minefields and elephant traps lying in wait.

So did Cullinan hesitate before accepting? After all, he was basking in glory, having masterminded an acclaimed £41 million refurbishment of the National Portrait Gallery (NPG), where he was the director. He would probably have been in the running, when the time came, to be the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, where he had previously worked as the curator of modern art.

“No, I didn’t hesitate,” he says. “It was an easy decision to make. You know, I first came to the BM when I was four. I was born in Connecticut, but my parents returned to England and for a while we lived in a little hotel in Gower Street [in Bloomsbury, close to the museum], before moving to Hebden Bridge in Yorkshire. It was a difficult time, but my mother brought me to the museum and it gave me a real sense of solace, of belonging to this world. That memory has come back so strongly over the past few months.”

Cullinan is one of the BM’s youngest directors to date, and its trustees must be hoping that he brings the sort of star power to the place that Tristram Hunt has done for the V&A, with its crowd-pulling run of shows about fashion designers and pop icons. In that respect Cullinan has one not-so-secret weapon: a longstanding friendship with the rock star Courtney Love, Kurt Cobain’s widow. She was a DJ at a party Cullinan hosted at the National Portrait Gallery last year and describes Cullinan as her “soulmate” and a “brilliant, handsome and charming angel”. Cullinan and his partner, the Belgian art dealer Mattias Vendelmans, live in south London and trendy Margate, Kent.

Cullinan had an unusual childhood, educated at home with his three elder sisters. “We had very little money, but we were fortunate in that my parents, who were extraordinary in overcoming social and economic barriers and broadening their horizons, exposed us to reading, music, visiting museums and the theatre from a young age.” That, Cullinan feels, explains why he is passionate about offering access to culture to as many people as possible, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds. “It can and does change lives,” he says.

It certainly changed his. After A-levels he worked in the Halifax branch of Boots, but went with his parents on holiday to Venice. There, in the Accademia Gallery, he had what he describes as “a moment of clarity, almost an epiphany”. He realised he wanted to study art history.

He successfully applied to the Courtauld Institute — the first person in his family to go to university. There he flourished, studying successively for a BA, MA and PhD before beginning a dazzlingly quick rise through some of the world’s most famous galleries as a curator, from the Guggenheim in Bilbao to Tate Modern.

Now he’s back where he started as a four-year-old. “Of course it’s a unique place,” he says. “It’s the world’s oldest public museum, with 271 years of collecting history and all the issues that come with that.”

Ah yes, the “issues”. Let’s go through them. First, those 2,000 stolen items. With many now recovered, and security much tightened, is that unhappy episode now closed? “Yes,” Cullinan replies. “Lessons have been learnt and clear action taken. The decision to digitise the whole collection, all eight million items, is obviously a big part of that.”

Does that mean that, in future, if an item is stolen and offered for sale, it will be easy to check it against the BM’s database? “Yes,” Cullinan replies. “But it also gives us an amazing opportunity to create an incredible website that could reach well beyond the museum’s walls.”

Digital expansion is one obvious way forward for the BM. But transforming its complex site in Bloomsbury, with its 3,500 rooms, is just as important, given how fast attendance is growing again after the hiatus of Covid (there will be six million visitors this year). The masterplan to transform the building has been knocking around for a decade with little sign of progress evident, to the outsider at least. Can Cullinan kick it into life?

He has made a whirlwind start, at least. Announced last month were the five architectural teams shortlisted (from more than 60 entrants) to work with the BM on rethinking what’s called the “western range”: the galleries that include the rooms housing the Elgin Marbles, Rosetta Stone and Egyptian mummies. The shortlisted teams comprise some of the most acclaimed architecture firms in the business: OMA, David Chipperfield, 6a, Eric Parry/Jamie Fobert and Lina Ghotmeh. But getting shortlisted is just the first step in the competition. “Over the autumn we will work with each of them to see what sort of vision emerges,” Cullinan says. Then there will be a public display of their ideas in the Round Reading Room, and the eventual winner will be announced early next year.

• Inside the British Museum reading room — the UK’s grandest library reopens

Cullinan says that redesigning the western range will be “a career-defining opportunity for the chosen team”. That’s probably true. But if it goes wrong it could be a career-destroying moment for everyone involved, including him. “It reminds me of what we did at the NPG, but on a bigger scale,” he says. “It’s really a giant restoration project. The western range is largely the original Robert Smirke building from the 19th century, with its beautiful galleries. But they can be made even more beautiful, and at the same time we have to rethink how we navigate visitors round the building and best display and interpret the collection.”

Rethink interpretation? Surely Cullinan doesn’t intend to impose the sort of hyper-politically correct labelling of exhibits we’ve seen elsewhere, notably at Tate Britain. “No,” he replies. “What I mean is making sure our scholarship is up to date, not conforming to a particular sort of political agenda.”

It will be years before visitors feel the benefits of the redesigned western range. But Cullinan has another project in the pipeline to improve the visitor experience much sooner. At present visitors have to queue to pass through a grim security tent in the museum’s forecourt. First impressions count, and that’s a bad one. So Cullinan has launched another architectural competition, aimed at emerging architects rather than international big-hitters, to design an attractive “visitor welcome pavilion” to replace the tent. “We want the BM to be the most welcoming and accessible museum in the world,” he says. “An attractive new pavilion will signal that.” The aim is to get it up and running by March 2026.

However, all these innovations cost money — at least £1 billion, it’s reckoned, if the masterplan is to be fully realised. The BM has already secured that £50 million from BP. How much of Cullinan’s time is going to be spent raising the other £950 million? “Oh, I’m sure a fair part of it,” he says, laughing. “Luckily I enjoy fundraising. But this is obviously quite a challenge.”

Especially when, in the present censorious climate, so many potential donors could be deemed problematic. We know where Osborne, Cullinan’s boss, stands on that question. He accepted BP’s money. And Cullinan says he “gets on really well with George”. But what’s his own attitude to controversial donors? After all, when he was running the NPG he severed its links with BP.

“I think the debate has changed, but what hasn’t changed are the two criteria against which you weigh up donations and sponsorship,” he replies. “One is: was the money legally acquired? The other is: will accepting it cause us reputational damage? I think you have to have very good, clear reasons for turning down money that would help to keep the British Museum free to the public.”

That, however, brings us to another big question. Should Britain’s national museums continue to be “free to the public” — although at huge cost to the taxpayer — when Cullinan’s main competitors at the Louvre in Paris, the Vatican in Rome and the Met in New York demand about £25 for adult entry? Jones, Cullinan’s temporary predecessor, suggested charging foreign visitors at least. But Cullinan is adamant that the BM will remain free to all visitors.

“Free admission is one big reason why I have stayed in this country,” he says. “It makes our museums very special. That said, it doesn’t mean museums shouldn’t be constantly thinking about how to earn income and be as self-sufficient as possible. But they already are doing that. Most museums are funded primarily by themselves, not the taxpayer.”

The other great challenge facing the BM is how it responds to demands that contested items such as the Elgin Marbles and Benin bronzes be returned to where they originally came from. Cullinan points out that the 1963 British Museum Act stops the museum from deaccessioning anything in its collection, even if it wanted to. “The more interesting aspect to think about now is how we can work in partnership with other museums round the world to lend or exchange items,” he says. “There’s no impediment to that and it would benefit everyone. Already far more people see the BM’s objects in exhibitions outside the BM than visit the museum.”

But would a friendly lending agreement end the seemingly eternal squabble over the Elgin Marbles? It seems unlikely. “This is not me trying to dodge the question,” Cullinan says, “but that issue is not within my purview. It depends on other parties.”

In his spare time Cullinan reads fiction prolifically. Asked to name his favourite novel, he comes up with Marguerite Yourcenar’s Memoirs of Hadrian. “I’ve read it four or five times,” he says. “It’s an incredible chronicle of a person’s life in its different stages: the ambition of youth; the middle period when you are balancing hope with disappointment; then late life when you can finally make sense of everything.”

Let’s hope Cullinan has got to that stage early. If the director of the British Museum can’t “make sense of everything”, what hope for the rest of us?

New shows — and a new direction

Silk Roads

A look beyond the popular images of camel caravans and bazaars, at richer stories of the connections between cultures.
Sep 26-Feb 23, 2025

Hew Locke: what have we here?

The contemporary artist uses the BM’s collection as a springboard to explore the challenges of British imperialism.
Oct 17-Feb 9, 2025

Picasso: Printmaker

A selection of the 2,400 prints the artist made, from his first professional print in 1904 to work created when he was almost 87.
Nov 7-Mar 30, 2025

What exhibitions have you enjoyed recently? Let us know in the comments below