Martin Clark to Leave Camden Art Centre for Towner Eastbourne Directorship

Martin Clark, director of Camden Art Centre in London since 2017, has been appointed director and chief executive of Towner Eastbourne gallery in East Sussex. He takes up the post in January 2027, succeeding Joe Hill, who stepped down earlier in 2026 to lead Yorkshire Sculpture Park. The Art Newspaper

The move pairs a curator with a gallery on a strong run. Towner Eastbourne, founded in 1923, jointly won the Art Fund Museum of the Year in 2020 and hosted the Turner Prize — Britain's most debated contemporary art award — in 2023. Its collection holds the largest body of work by Eric Ravilious (1903–1942), the painter and designer whose watercolours of the South Downs and the Sussex coast are closely tied to the landscape the gallery sits in. Clark served as a judge on the Turner Prize jury that same year, so the relationship is not new.

Clark arrives with a substantial project waiting. He will lead the Towner Seven Sisters scheme at Black Robin Farm, a planned culture and education centre in the South Downs National Park, delivered in partnership with Eastbourne Borough Council and set to begin construction in early 2027. Arts Council England awarded £750,000 to the scheme, which also received funding from the UK government's levelling up fund — a pot aimed at boosting infrastructure and cultural investment outside London.

Before Camden, Clark directed the Bergen Kunsthall in Norway, and he holds a Masters in Curating and Commissioning Contemporary Art from the Royal College of Art in London.

His departure from Camden Art Centre comes after a period of institutional consolidation. In 2025 the gallery bought the lease on its building for the next 99 years following a £1.9 million fundraising campaign to which artists and galleries contributed. Clark joined Camden in 2017 after his appointment was announced by Artforum.

For a regional gallery, landing a director with Clark's contemporary-art pedigree and London experience is a signal of intent — particularly with the Black Robin Farm expansion on the horizon and the momentum from hosting the Turner Prize still relatively fresh. The Towner's Ravilious collection display, free but ticketed, is open Tuesdays through Sundays and on Bank Holiday Mondays.

A successor at Camden Art Centre has not yet been named.