Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the UK
Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
, type = Department
, logo = Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport logo.svg
, logo_width =
, logo_caption =
, seal =
, seal_width =
, seal_caption =
, picture = Gove ...
.
The name "Tate" is used also as the operating name for the corporate body, which was established by the
Museums and Galleries Act 1992
The Museums and Galleries Act 1992 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom (1992 c. 44) the long title of which is "An Act to establish Boards of Trustees of the National Gallery, the Tate Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery and t ...
as "The Board of Trustees of the Tate Gallery".
The gallery was founded in 1897 as the National Gallery of British Art. When its role was changed to include the national collection of modern art as well as the national collection of
British art
The Art of the United Kingdom refers to all forms of visual art in or associated with the United Kingdom since the formation of the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707 and encompasses English art, Scottish art, Welsh art and Irish art, and forms ...
, in 1932, it was renamed the Tate Gallery after sugar magnate
Henry Tate
Sir Henry Tate, 1st Baronet (11 March 18195 December 1899) was an English sugar merchant and philanthropist, noted for establishing the Tate Gallery in London.
Life and career
Born in White Coppice, a hamlet near Chorley, Lancashire, Tate was ...
of
Tate & Lyle
Tate & Lyle PLC is a British-headquartered, global supplier of food and beverage ingredients to industrial markets. It was originally a sugar refining business, but from the 1970s it began to diversify, eventually divesting its sugar business i ...
, who had laid the foundations for the collection. The Tate Gallery was housed in the current building occupied by Tate Britain, which is situated in Millbank, London. In 2000, the Tate Gallery transformed itself into the current-day Tate, which consists of a network of four museums:
Tate Britain
Tate Britain, known from 1897 to 1932 as the National Gallery of British Art and from 1932 to 2000 as the Tate Gallery, is an art museum on Millbank in the City of Westminster in London, England. It is part of the Tate network of galleries in ...
, which displays the collection of British art from 1500 to the present day;
Tate Modern
Tate Modern is an art gallery located in London. It houses the United Kingdom's national collection of international modern and contemporary art, and forms part of the Tate group together with Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. It is ...
, also in London, which houses the Tate's collection of British and international modern and contemporary art from 1900 to the present day;
Tate Liverpool
Tate Liverpool is an art gallery and museum in Liverpool, Merseyside, England, and part of Tate, along with Tate St Ives, Cornwall, Tate Britain, London, and Tate Modern, London. The museum was an initiative of the Merseyside Development C ...
(founded in 1988), which has the same purpose as Tate Modern but on a smaller scale; and
Tate St Ives
Tate St Ives is an art gallery in St Ives, Cornwall, England, exhibiting work by modern British artists with links to the St Ives area. The Tate also took over management of another museum in the town, the Barbara Hepworth Museum and Sculpture ...
in
Cornwall
Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a historic county and ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people. Cornwall is bordered to the north and west by the Atlantic ...
(founded in 1993), which displays modern and contemporary art by artists who have connections with the area. All four museums share the Tate Collection. One of the Tate's most publicised art events is the awarding of the annual
Turner Prize
The Turner Prize, named after the English painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist. Between 1991 and 2016, only artists under the age of 50 were eligible (this restriction was removed for the 2017 award) ...
, which takes place at Tate Britain every other year (taking place at venues outside of London in alternate years).
History and development
The original Tate was called the National Gallery of British Art, situated on Millbank,
Pimlico
Pimlico () is an area of Central London in the City of Westminster, built as a southern extension to neighbouring Belgravia. It is known for its garden squares and distinctive Regency architecture. Pimlico is demarcated to the north by London V ...
, London at the site of the former
Millbank Prison
Millbank Prison or Millbank Penitentiary was a prison in Millbank, Westminster, London, originally constructed as the National Penitentiary, and which for part of its history served as a holding facility for convicted prisoners before they were t ...
National Gallery
The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London, England. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The current Director ...
in 1847. A decade later John Sheepshanks gave his collection to the South Kensington Museum (later the
Victoria & Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...
), known for years as the National Gallery of Art (the same title as the Tate Gallery had). Forty years later Sir Henry Tate who was a sugar magnate and a major collector of Victorian art, offered to fund the building of the gallery to house British Art on the condition that the State pay for the site and revenue costs. Henry Tate also donated his own collection to the gallery. It was initially a collection solely of modern British art, concentrating on the works of modern—that is Victorian era—painters. It was controlled by the National Gallery until 1954.
Following the death of
Sir Hugh Lane
Sir Hugh Percy Lane (9 November 1875 – 7 May 1915) was an Irish art dealer, collector and gallery director. He is best known for establishing Dublin's Municipal Gallery of Modern Art (the first known public gallery of modern art in the ...
in the sinking of the
RMS Lusitania
RMS ''Lusitania'' (named after the Roman province in Western Europe corresponding to modern Portugal) was a British ocean liner that was launched by the Cunard Line in 1906 and that held the Blue Riband appellation for the fastest Atlanti ...
in 1915, an oversight in his will meant that the collection of European modern art he had intended to go to Dublin controversially went to the Tate instead, which expanded its collection to include foreign art and continued to acquire contemporary art. In 1926 and 1937, the art dealer and patron
Joseph Duveen
Joseph Duveen, 1st Baron Duveen (14 October 1869 – 25 May 1939), known as Sir Joseph Duveen, Baronet, between 1927 and 1933, was a British art dealer who was considered one of the most influential art dealers of all time.
Life and career
Jos ...
paid for two major expansions of the gallery building. His father had earlier paid for an extension to house the major part of the Turner Bequest, which in 1987 was transferred to a wing paid for by Sir Charles Clore. Henry Courtauld also endowed Tate with a purchase fund. By the mid 20th century, it was fulfilling a dual function of showing the history of British art as well as international modern art. In 1954, the Tate Gallery was finally separated from the National Gallery.
During the 1950s and 1960s, the visual arts department of the Arts Council of Great Britain funded and organised temporary exhibitions at the Tate Gallery including, in 1966, a retrospective of
Marcel Duchamp
Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (, , ; 28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, and conceptual art. Duchamp is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso ...
. Later, the Tate began organising its own temporary exhibition programme. In 1979 with funding from a Japanese bank a large modern extension was opened that would also house larger income generating exhibitions. In 1987, the Clore Wing opened to house the major part of the Turner bequest and also provided a 200-seat auditorium. (The "Centenary Development," in 2001, provided improved access and public amenities)
In 1988, an outpost in north west England opened as Tate Liverpool. This shows various works of modern art from the Tate collection as well as mounting its own temporary exhibitions. In 2007, Tate Liverpool hosted the
Turner Prize
The Turner Prize, named after the English painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist. Between 1991 and 2016, only artists under the age of 50 were eligible (this restriction was removed for the 2017 award) ...
, the first time this has been held outside London. This was an overture to Liverpool's being the European Capital of Culture 2008.
In 1993, another offshoot opened,
Tate St Ives
Tate St Ives is an art gallery in St Ives, Cornwall, England, exhibiting work by modern British artists with links to the St Ives area. The Tate also took over management of another museum in the town, the Barbara Hepworth Museum and Sculpture ...
. It exhibits work by modern British artists, particularly those of the
St Ives School
The St Ives School refers to a group of artists living and working in the Cornish town of St Ives.Barbara Hepworth Museum and Sculpture Garden, which opened in 1980.
Neither of these two new Tates had a significant effect on the functioning of the original London Tate Gallery, whose size was increasingly proving a constraint as the collection grew. It was a logical step to separate the "British" and "Modern" aspects of the collection, and they are now housed in separate buildings in London. The original gallery is now called Tate Britain and is the national gallery for British art from 1500 to the present day, as well as some modern British art.
Tate Modern
Tate Modern is an art gallery located in London. It houses the United Kingdom's national collection of international modern and contemporary art, and forms part of the Tate group together with Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. It is ...
Thames
The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the second-longest in the United Kingdom, after the R ...
, opened in 2000 and now exhibits the national collection of modern art from 1900 to the present day, including some modern British art.
In the late 2000s, the Tate announced a new development project to the south of the existing building. According to the museum this new development would "transform Tate Modern. An iconic new building will be added at the south of the existing gallery. It will create more spaces for displaying the collection, performance and installation art and learning, all allowing visitors to engage more deeply with art, as well as creating more social spaces for visitors to unwind and relax in the gallery." Arts philanthropist
John Studzinski
John Joseph Paul Studzinski, CBE (born March 19, 1956) is an American-British investment banker and philanthropist. Since September 2018 he has been Managing Director and Vice Chairman of the global investment-management firm PIMCO.
Prior to j ...
Tate Modern
Tate Modern is an art gallery located in London. It houses the United Kingdom's national collection of international modern and contemporary art, and forms part of the Tate group together with Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. It is ...
. 22 May 2007. The extension to Tate Modern opened in 2016 as The Switch House and, in 2017, was renamed the Blavatnik Building after Anglo-Ukrainian billionaire Sir
Leonard Blavatnik
Sir Leonard Valentinovich Blavatnik, russian: Леонид Валентинович Блаватник, Leonid Valentinovich Blavatnik (born June 14, 1957) is a Ukraine-born American-British business magnate and philanthropist. As of March 202 ...
, who contributed a "substantial" amount of its £260m cost.
The youngest person to be awarded a residency at the Tate is
Travis Alabanza
Travis Alabanza (born 15 November 1995) is a British performance artist, writer and theatre maker.
Career
Alabanza's poems were first published in 2015, in the ''Black and Gay in the UK Anthology''. Later that year Alabanza went on tour for th ...
.
Tate Digital
Tate Digital is the name of the department responsible for Tate's website and other public-facing digital projects. Since its launch in 1998, Tate's website site has provided information on all four physical Tate galleries (Tate Britain, Tate St Ives, Tate Liverpool and Tate Modern) under the same domain. Other resources include illustrated information on all works in Tate's Collection of British and Modern, Contemporary and international art, all of Tate's research publications, and articles from the magazine '' Tate Etc.'' BT was the primary sponsor of Tate Online from 2001 to 2009.
Tate Online has been used as a platform for Internet art exhibits, termed ''Net Art'', which are organised as part of Tate's ''Intermedia Art'' initiative covering
new media art
New media art includes artworks designed and produced by means of electronic media technologies, comprising virtual art, computer graphics, computer animation, digital art, interactive art, sound art, Internet art, video games, robotics, 3D pri ...
. 13 net art exhibitions have been shown since the initiative started in 2000 including Tate in Space (2002) which was nominated in the Interactive Art category for the 2003 BAFTA Interactive awards.
Administration and funding
Tate receives annual funding from the
Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
, type = Department
, logo = Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport logo.svg
, logo_width =
, logo_caption =
, seal =
, seal_width =
, seal_caption =
, picture = Gove ...
. It is administered by a board of trustees, who are responsible for the running of the gallery and appoint the Director (for a period of seven years). Under the
Charities Act 1993
The Charities Act 2011c 25 is a UK Act of Parliament. It consolidated the bulk of the Charities Act 2006, outstanding provisions of the Charities Act 1993, and various other enactments.
Repeals
Legislation repealed in its entirety by the 2011 ...
, the Tate is an
exempt charity An exempt charity is an institution established in England and Wales for charitable purposes which is exempt from registration with, and oversight by, the Charity Commission for England and Wales.
Exempt charities are largely institutions of furth ...
accountable directly to Government rather than the
Charity Commission
, type = Non-ministerial government department
, seal =
, seal_caption =
, logo = Charity Commission for England and Wales logo.svg
, logo_caption =
, formed =
, preceding1 =
, ...
for financial returns etc. However, the Trustees are still expected to follow the broad responsibilities of charity trustees, and may be subject to Charity Commission oversight on these elements of their activities.
Maria Balshaw has been Director of Tate since 2017, succeeding
Sir Nicholas Serota
Sir Nicholas Andrew Serota, (born 27 April 1946) is an English art historian and curator, who served as the Director of the Tate from 1988 to 2017. He is currently Chair of Arts Council England, a role which he has held since February 2017.
...
(1988 to 2017). Under the Director, Kerstin Mogull has been Managing Director of Tate since January 2014, succeeding Alex Beard.
Various bodies have been set up to support the Tate including Tate Members for the general public, where a yearly fee gives rights such as free entry to charging exhibitions and members' rooms. There is also Tate Patrons for a higher subscription fee and the Tate Foundation. There are a number of corporate sponsors. In addition individual shows are often sponsored.
Tate now spends around £1 million of its general funds each year on purchasing acquisitions and their related costs. The
Outset Contemporary Art Fund
Outset Contemporary Art Fund is an arts charity established in 2003, and based in London, England.
The charity was the first organisation to utilise cross-institution collective patronage to fund artistic projects in the UK. It has raised over £ ...
was established in 2003, by Tate patrons
Yana Peel
Yana Peel (born June 1974) is a Canadian executive, businesswoman, children's author and philanthropist who is currently global head of arts and culture at Chanel.Bailey, Sarah. "In Conversation: Art and Fashion Are Both About Desire", '' Red'', ...
and Candida Gertler. In collaboration with the
Frieze Art Fair
Frieze Art Fair is an international contemporary art fair in London, New York, and Los Angeles. Frieze London takes place every October in London's Regent's Park. In the US, the fair ran on New York's Randall's Island from 2012–19 and in 2 ...
, the fund buys works from the fair for the Tate's collections. Other funds for acquisitions are raised by Tate funding groups such as the Members, the Patrons and the American Patrons of Tate and its sub-committees, the North American Acquisitions Committee and Latin American Acquisitions Committee. The American Patrons were renamed in 2013 to reflect their expanding geographical base of support; since 1999, this support group alone has raised more than $100 million.
In 2010, a photography acquisitions committee was launched. In 2012, the Tate established a South Asian acquisitions committee to collect contemporary and modern art from India and surrounding countries, as well as a committee for works from Russia, Eastern Europe and the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States).
Controversies
*In 1971, an exhibition by Robert Morris called Bodyspacemotionthings was closed after five days due to health and safety concerns.
*In 1972, the Tate Gallery purchased a work by
Carl Andre
Carl Andre (born September 16, 1935) is an American minimalist artist recognized for his ordered linear and grid format sculptures and for the suspected murder of contemporary and wife, Ana Mendieta. His sculptures range from large public art ...
called ''
Equivalent VIII
''Equivalent VIII'', 1966, 120 Firebricks, 5 x 27 x 90 ¼ inches, occasionally referred to as ''The Bricks'', is the last of a series of minimalist sculptures by Carl Andre. The sculpture consists of 120 fire bricks, arranged in two layers, in ...
.'' During a 1976 exhibition of the work, ''
The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...
'' newspaper published an article using the work to complain about institutional waste of taxpayers' money. The article made the piece infamous and it was subjected to ridicule in the media and vandalism. The work is still popularly known as ''The Bricks'', and has entered the British public lexicon.
*Each year, the
Turner Prize
The Turner Prize, named after the English painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist. Between 1991 and 2016, only artists under the age of 50 were eligible (this restriction was removed for the 2017 award) ...
is held at a Tate Gallery (historically at Tate Britain) and is awarded to an artist who is either British or primarily working in Great Britain. It is the subject of great controversy and creates much media attention for contemporary British art, as well as attracting
demonstrations
Demonstration may refer to:
* Demonstration (acting), part of the Brechtian approach to acting
* Demonstration (military), an attack or show of force on a front where a decision is not sought
* Demonstration (political), a political rally or prote ...
.
*In 1995, it was revealed that the Tate had accepted a gift of £20,000 from art fraudster
John Drewe
John Drewe (born 1948) is a British purveyor of art forgeries who commissioned artist John Myatt to paint them. Drewe earned about £1.8 million executing these art crimes.
Early life
Drewe was born John Cockett in 1948 in Sussex, England. ...
. The gallery had given Drewe access to its archives which he then used to forge documents authenticating fake modern paintings that he then sold.
*In 1998,
Sir Nicholas Serota
Sir Nicholas Andrew Serota, (born 27 April 1946) is an English art historian and curator, who served as the Director of the Tate from 1988 to 2017. He is currently Chair of Arts Council England, a role which he has held since February 2017.
...
, director of Tate, conceived 'Operation Cobalt', the secret and ultimately successful buyback of two of the Tate's paintings by
J.M.W. Turner
Joseph Mallord William Turner (23 April 177519 December 1851), known in his time as William Turner, was an English Romantic painter, printmaker and watercolourist. He is known for his expressive colouring, imaginative landscapes and turbule ...
that had been stolen from a German gallery in 1994. See Frankfurt art theft (1994).
*In 2006, it was revealed that the Tate was the only national-funded museum not to be accredited by the
Museums, Libraries and Archives Council
The Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) was until May 2012 a non-departmental public body and registered charity in England with a remit to promote improvement and innovation in the area of museums, libraries and archives. Its function ...
(MLA), as it did not wish to abide by guidelines that deaccessioned work should first be offered to other museums. The MLA threatened to bar the Tate from acquiring works under the Acceptance in Lieu (AIL) scheme, whereby works are given to the nation to settle inheritance tax. A total of 1,800 museums were accredited by the MLA."Tate Is Not a Museum", ''
The Art Newspaper
''The Art Newspaper'' is a monthly print publication, with daily updates online, founded in 1990 and based in London and New York City. It covers news of the visual arts as they are affected by international politics and economics, developments ...
'', 14 August 2006. Retrieved from the
Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...
, 14 March 201 /ref>
*Tate has been criticised for accepting sponsorship from BP. Justice and climate change campaigners including Platform London, ''Art Not Oil'' and Liberate Tate have called for a protest against the petrol company's sponsorship of the gallery, including the 2012 Cultural Olympiad.
Logo and brand
The Tate logo was designed by international brand consultancy
Wolff Olins
Wolff Olins is a British advertising agency and corporate identity consultancy. It was started in 1965 and has offices in London, New York City and San Francisco. It now employs some 150 designers, strategists, technologists, programme managers ...
in 2000 as part of a larger rebranding effort focused around the idea "look again, think again." The museum uses a range of logos that move in and out of focus, "suggesting the dynamic nature of Tate – always changing but always recognizable" Variations include a standard logo, a blurred version, a faded version and a halftone version consisting of dots rather than smooth fading. An update on the brand, designed by North, was released in 2016.
Directors
The head of the Tate (formally the National Gallery of British Art and the Tate Gallery) is currently titled the Director. Until 1917, they were styled the Keeper.
* Sir Charles Holroyd (1897 to 1906)
*
D. S. MacColl
Dugald Sutherland MacColl (10 March 1859 – 21 December 1948) was a Scottish watercolour painter, art critic, lecturer and writer. He was keeper of the Tate Gallery for five years.
Life
MacColl was born in Glasgow and educated at the Univ ...
(1906 to 1911)
*
Charles Aitken
Charles Aitken (12 September 1869 – 9 August 1936) was a British art administrator and was the third Keeper of the Tate Gallery (1911–1917) and the first Director (1917–1930).
Life and work
Charles Aitken was born at Bisho ...
(1911 to 1930)
*
James Bolivar Manson
James Bolivar Manson (26 June 1879 in London – 3 July 1945 in London)
Sir Alan Bowness
Sir Alan Bowness CBE (11 January 1928 – 1 March 2021) was a British art historian, art critic, and museum director. He was the director of the Tate Gallery between 1980 and 1988.
Early life
Bowness was born in Finchley to Kathleen (née B ...
(1980 to 1988)
*
Sir Nicholas Serota
Sir Nicholas Andrew Serota, (born 27 April 1946) is an English art historian and curator, who served as the Director of the Tate from 1988 to 2017. He is currently Chair of Arts Council England, a role which he has held since February 2017.
...
Edward Burne-Jones
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, 1st Baronet, (; 28 August, 183317 June, 1898) was a British painter and designer associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood which included Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Millais, Ford Madox Brown and Holman Hun ...
, 1884, '' King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid'', Tate Britain
File:Robert Delaunay - Windows Open Simultaneously (First Part, Third Motif) - 1912 - Tate Modern.jpg,
Robert Delaunay
Robert Delaunay (12 April 1885 – 25 October 1941) was a French artist who, with his wife Sonia Delaunay and others, co-founded the Orphism art movement, noted for its use of strong colours and geometric shapes. His later works were more abstra ...
, 1912, ''Windows Open Simultaneously (First Part, Third Motif)'', Tate Modern
File:A Young Lady's Adventure.JPG,
Paul Klee
Paul Klee (; 18 December 1879 – 29 June 1940) was a Swiss-born German artist. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. Klee was a natural draftsman who experimented ...
Turner Prize
The Turner Prize, named after the English painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist. Between 1991 and 2016, only artists under the age of 50 were eligible (this restriction was removed for the 2017 award) ...
*
Tate Publishing Ltd
Tate Publishing is a publisher of visual arts books, associated with the Tate Gallery in London, England. It was established in 1911; nowadays it is a division of Tate Enterprises Ltd, an independent company wholly owned by the Trustees of Tate, ...
, a publisher of art books associated with the Tate Gallery