LONDON.- Announced today, the latest round of the Weston Loan Programme with Art Fund will see national treasures travel to 11 regional museums and galleries across the UK - reuniting iconic works with the people and places that inspired them.

From JMW Turner’s romantic sketches of Wales returning to Carmarthenshire, to Anglo-Saxon burial treasures unearthed in Buckinghamshire, and Blackpool’s untold wartime story brought to life with loans from the Imperial War Museum - the latest exhibitions supported by the Weston Loan Programme with Art Fund highlight how national collections resonate with local communities and offer a platform to celebrate our shared culture and stories.

Now in its ninth year, the Weston Loan Programme is the first UK-wide grant programme designed to directly fund and empower smaller museums to borrow major works from national or major lending museums and galleries. By supporting the costs of securing loans - from transportation and conservation to community engagement - the programme increases access to notable objects, shares resources across the country and brings lasting benefits to borrowers, lenders and audiences.

Major works from lending institutions including Tate, the British Museum, the Royal Academy, and the Government Art Collection will travel to museums from the Outer Hebrides to Llanelli. Highlights include:

• Loans from the Imperial War Museum - including posters and a rarely seen oil painting by Charles Ernest Cundall – will be paired with objects from Lancashire County Museums Service for Wartime Blackpool: Bright Lights in Dark Times (2 April – October 2025) at Showtown to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, exploring how stars such as George Formby and Vivien Leigh took to Blackpool’s stages and boosted morale.

• Celebrating the shared 250th anniversaries of JMW Turner and Jane Austen, Austen and Turner: a Country House Encounter (2 May – 19 October 2025) at Harewood House will unite Turner’s country house paintings - loaned from Tate, the British Library, and the Royal Academy of Arts - with Austen’s reflections on class, romance, and wealth in the first ever UK exhibition to bring together the work of these two legendary artists.

• In a unique collaboration with English Heritage, Masterpieces from Kenwood (3 May – 19 October 2025) at Gainsborough’s House will offer a rare chance to see the artist’s iconic 18th-century paintings at his Suffolk birthplace, on loan from Kenwood in London.

• The lives of emigrants from the Outer Hebrides will be explored with major loans from National Museums Scotland in Homesickness and Hope: Stories of Hebridean Emigration (31 May - 29 November 2025) at Museum & Tasglann nan Eilean. Objects from the museum’s collections never before displayed will go on show, including the original bell from the SS Metagama, the boat associated with emigration from the Outer Hebrides.

• Local Anglo-Saxon treasures will be brought to life in Echoes of the Saxons: Death & Legacy (March - November 2026) at Discover Bucks Museum alongside recently unearthed finds from nearby HS2 excavations in Wendover displayed for the first time.

• The 250th anniversary of Suffolk-born Constable will be marked with the artist’s most treasured works loaned from national collections including Tate and the Government Art Collection in Constable 250 (March 2026 – February 2027) with three landmark exhibitions at Christchurch Mansion, supported by The National Lottery Heritage Fund, uniting some of the artist’s best loved paintings with the Suffolk scenes that inspired them.

• JMW Turner’s sketches and watercolours from his travels through South Wales will return to the landscapes that first inspired them over two centuries ago in Romantic Wales – JMW Turner in Carmarthenshire (May - November 2026) at Parc Howard and Carmarthenshire Museum.

In addition, the Weston Loan Programme has awarded research and development grants to Dales Countryside Museum in Yorkshire for Uncovering stories of women in rural life, past and present, and Suffolk Archives for Witches and Witchcraft in Suffolk. These grants will enable museums to develop their plans for ambitious loan projects by undertaking research, strengthening partnerships with institutions and refining proposals.

A total of £321,014, including support from the London Historic Houses Museums Trust, has been awarded in this round, bringing the total so far to almost £1.9 million across 106 organisations since the scheme began in 2017. The programme was conceived by and continues to be generously supported by the Garfield Weston Foundation, with funding confirmed up to its 10th anniversary in 2027. Applications for round 10 of the programme will open in Autumn 2025.

Jenny Waldman, Director, Art Fund, said: "The Weston Loan Programme with Art Fund unlocks the power of our national collections by sharing them with regional museums and galleries across the UK. Whether it’s Turner’s romantic visions of Wales, Saxon treasures unearthed in Buckinghamshire, or Blackpool’s untold wartime story - these exhibitions demonstrate how art and artefacts can resonate deeply with local communities. We’re so pleased to support museums to tell these stories through another year of our valuable partnership with the Garfield Weston Foundation.”

Sophia Weston, Deputy Chair of the Garfield Weston Foundation, said: “Spanning the breadth of the UK, this latest round of The Weston Loan Programme with Art Fund will see museums and galleries tell exciting, resonant stories by uniting treasured works of art and objects with the places and people connected to them. From Constable’s iconic landscapes returning to the Suffolk scenes that inspired them, to Gainsborough’s masterpieces reunited at his birthplace, we’re thrilled to support the exhibitions which will bring these cultural gems to life for audiences across the country."