EASTBOURNE.- Towner will welcome Martin Clark as CEO & Director in January 2027, following the departure of Joe Hill in spring 2026. Clark has been appointed by a panel led by Stephen Welton CBE, Chair of Towner’s Board of Trustees and Chair of British Business Bank with President of the Board David Dimbleby.
Martin Clark, who previously worked with Towner as a member of the Turner Prize 2023 jury, joins the team after nearly a decade as Director of Camden Art Centre, London. During his tenure, he has grown the organisation’s profile and visibility, both nationally and internationally. He has also programmed and curated an internationally acclaimed series of exhibitions with artists including Mohammed Sami, Amy Sillman, Christodoulos Panayiotou, Martin Wong, Allison Katz, Lonnie Holley, Jesse Darling, Forrest Bess, Richard Wright, Nicola L., and the influential group exhibition, The Botanical Mind. In 2018 he established the Camden Art Centre Emerging Artist Award at Frieze London, giving the milestone opportunity of a first London institutional show to young and emerging artists from all over the world, including Julien Creuzet, Marina Xenofontos, Wong Ping, Tenant of Culture, Jack O’Brien and Nat Faulkner. In 2025, the gallery’s 60th anniversary year, he led a major fundraising campaign to acquire the building from Camden Council and secure Camden Art Centre’s future for generations to come.
Clark’s appointment comes at an exciting time for Towner ahead of the development of Towner Seven Sisters at Black Robin Farm, a bold new cultural destination for art, nature and heritage near Eastbourne in the South Downs National Park. Delivered in partnership with Eastbourne Borough Council with funding from the UK Government and Arts Council England to date, development of the new site will begin in early 2027 and will include a new gallery building and refurbished historic Downland farm buildings providing heritage, learning and community engagement spaces all set within an extraordinary natural landscape.
As a significant regional visual arts organisation, Towner is also growing its Newhaven creative programme which supports artists, communities and creative industries and using its connections and convening power to drive the development of the wider Sussex cultural offer and economic growth.
Before taking over at Camden Art Centre, Clark was Director at Bergen Kunsthall, Norway (2013-17), delivering an acclaimed programme of exhibitions, public realm commissions, performance, events and research. Prior to that, in 2007, Clark became the youngest Tate director when he took up the post of Artistic Director at Tate St Ives (2007-13), repositioning and reinvigorating both the artistic programmes and the strategic vision for this national museum and collection, located in a busy tourist destination on the Cornish coast. Between 2007-2013 he worked on the development, fundraising and artistic masterplan for the 9 million Tate St Ives Phase Two Capital Project, which delivered expanded galleries, collection displays, heritage programmes, and vital new art handling facilities for the building. Whilst at Tate St Ives he also curated the acclaimed group exhibition, The Dark Monarch: Magic and Modernity in British Art which toured to Towner Eastbourne in 2010.
Other roles include Artistic Director for Art Sheffield 2016, a city-wide visual arts festival which included a number of major new commissions; and Curator of Exhibitions at Arnolfini, Bristol (2005-07). He holds an MA in Curating and Commissioning Contemporary Art from the Royal College of Art, London, and a BA (Hons) in Fine Art from Sheffield Hallam University.
Stephen Welton CBE, Chair of Towner’s Board of Trustees and Chair of British Business Bank said: “I am delighted to welcome Martin Clark to Towner as our new CEO and Director. With a distinguished career in leading visual arts organisations in the UK and abroad, Martin will bring creativity, expertise and dynamism to the next stage of Towner’s evolution. He has a strong feel for our vital regional galleries and communities from his time at Tate St Ives in Cornwall, as well as a keen understanding of what is happening nationally after ten years with Camden Art Centre. He will be a great complement to the wider leadership of Towner, building on the success of recent years, overseeing important new projects such as Towner Seven Sisters at Black Robin Farm, and we all look forward to working with him.”
Martin Clark said: “I’m enormously excited to be joining Towner at this pivotal moment for the organisation. Towner is already the largest and most significant museum and gallery of modern and contemporary art in the southeast, but with the delivery of Towner Seven Sisters at Black Robin Farm, we have the opportunity to create a new kind of arts organisation. One that brings together a world class collection, an ambitious and internationally renowned exhibition and commissioning programme, alongside innovative new models of education, training, skills development and creative opportunities, all set in the unique and breathtaking landscape of the South Downs National Park.”
Catherine Wood, Towner Trustee and Acting Director, Tate Modern said: “We’re delighted to welcome Martin Clark as the new Director of Towner. Martin brings original artistic vision, deep respect within the field, and years of experience leading ambitious, publicly minded galleries, along with a genuine talent for building and nurturing communities of engagement around art. We’re excited to see Towner grow and flourish under his leadership.”
