The British Museum will host its second fundraising ball on 17 October following the high-profile Pink Ball last year which raised more than £2m. Tickets last year cost £2,000; the cost this year is £3,500 a head including a donation, said a museum spokesperson.
Funds raised at this year’s ball, which takes place during Frieze Week in the capital, will go towards the museum’s masterplan, which is estimated to cost at least £1bn; the ambitious overhaul includes a complete reworking of the Western range of the museum, new welcome pavilions and an energy centre designed to reduce the museum’s carbon footprint.
The designer Es Devlin is the artistic director for this year’s ball which, she says, “will help the British Museum continue to offer over six million people each year free immediate access to two million years of human history”. Devlin is known for large-scale installations such as Library of Us which was unveiled at Miami Beach last December.
The theme and visual identity of the 2026 Ball will be red, which the museum says was the earliest pigment known to have been used by humans in artistic expression. “Red is a unifying thread woven through all three of the museum’s upcoming displays, from the embroidered wool of the [Bayeux] tapestry [10 September-11 July 2027], the stripes of the American flag [Declaring independence: USA 250, until 29 November] to the rich hues found across centuries of Korean art [Korea, 1 October-31 January 2027],” said a museum statement.
The hedge fund billionaire Igor Tulchinsky, who has reportedly given £5m in sponsorship for the forthcoming Bayeux Tapestry exhibition, will serve as the “evening’s honorary chair” in recognition of his support, the museum says.
Tulchinsky emigrated to the United States as a child from Belarus; he is the founder and chief executive of WorldQuant, a quantitative investment firm with $17bn in assets according to Forbes, which values his personal fortune at $1.7bn.
Last year’s Pink Ball was attended by more than 800 guests including the former UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan and the artists Grayson Perry and Tracey Emin.
The event was disrupted however when a climate protestor took to the stage during a speech by the museum’s chair of trustees, George Osborne. Greece’s Ministry of Culture also criticised the museum for using the disputed Parthenon sculptures as a backdrop for diners.
The gross total raised by the event, which was co-hosted by the Indian philanthropist Isha Ambani, was £2.5m. This amount, minus expenses, went towards the museum’s international partnerships.
