The Tate Gallery (now officially titled just "Tate") in the United Kingdom is a network of four galleries: Tate Britain (opened 1897), Tate Liverpool (1988), Tate St Ives (1993) and Tate Modern (2000), with a complementary website, Tate Online (1998). The Tate is a British national museum having a grant directly from the Treasury. The Trustees appoint the Director for a period of seven years.

History and development

The original Tate art gallery was officially titled the National Gallery of British Art, and was situated on Millbank, Pimlico, London on the site of the former Millbank Prison. Upon his death, J.M.W. Turner had left the contents of his studio to the nation, some 2000 paintings and drawings. The National Gallery could not display the gift as Turner requested and this triggered a national debate about the creation of a gallery of British Art. Eventually Henry Tate who, as well as a sugar magnate, was also a major collector of Victorian academic 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 gifted the gallery his own collection. It was initially a collection solely of modern British art, concentrating on the works of modern—that is Victorian era—painters.

In 1915, Hugh Lane gifted his collection of European Modern Art to the Tate, 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 paid for two major expansions of the gallery building. 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. 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 Turner bequest and also provided a 200 seat auditorium. The 'Centenary Development' in 2001 provided improved access and public amenities.

It was a logical step to separate the "British" and "Modern" aspects of the collection, which are now housed in separate buildings in London. Tate Modern, in Bankside Power Station on the south side of the Thames, exhibits the national collection of modern art from 1900 to the present day. The original gallery is now called Tate Britain and is the national gallery for British art from 1500 to the present day. Modern British art can be found in both galleries.

Tate Modern is considered a major success story for the Tate's director Sir Nicholas Serota. In its first year, it was the most popular museum in the world, with 5,250,000 visitors.

Tate Online is Tate's official web site. Since its launch in 1998, the site has provided information on all four physical Tate galleries (Tate Britain, Tate St Ives, Tate Liverpool and Tate Modern) under the same domain. Tate Online helps visitors prepare and extend visits to the physical sites but also acts as a destination in its own right. Other resources include illustrated information on all works in Tate's Collection of British and Modern international art, structured and informal e-learning opportunites for all visitors, over 400 hours of archived webcast events, all articles from the magazine, TATE ETC and a series of bespoke net art commissions. BT has been the exclusive sponsor of Tate Online since 2001.

Support

Various bodies have been set up to support the Tate including Tate Members for the general public, where a yearly fee gives certain rights such as free entry to exhibitions. 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.

The Outset Contemporary Art Fund was established in 2003 by Tate patrons, Yana Peel and Candida Gertler, in collaboration with the Frieze Art Fair to buy works from the fair for the Tate.

Controversies

In the 19th century, there was dispute over the acquisitions made with the Chantry bequest and accusations of favouritism, resulting in the purchase of dull work by Royal Academicians.

In 1971, an exhibition by Robert Morris was closed after one day due to health and safety concerns.

In 1972, the Tate Gallery purchased a work by Carl Andre called 'Equivalent VIII'. During a 1976 exhibition of the work The Times 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.

Each year, the Turner Prize is held at a Tate Gallery (historially at Tate Britain) and is awarded to an artist under 50 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.

In 1995, it was revealed that the Tate had accepted a gift of £20,000 from art fraudster John Drewe. 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, director of Tate, conceived Operation Cobalt, the secret and ultimately successful buyback of two of the Tate's paintings by J. M. W. Turner that had been stolen from a German gallery in 1994. See Frankfurt art theft (1994).

In 2005, there was a scandal over the Tate's purchase of its trustee Chris Ofili's work The Upper Room for £705,000, and accusations of conflict of interest.Press coverage of The Upper Room scandal Retrieved 19 March, 2006

In 2006, it was revealed that the Tate was the only national-funded museum not to be accredited to the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (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. 1,800 museums are accredited to the MLA.The Art Newspaper Retrieved 19 March, 2006

See also

• Tate Online
• Tate Modern
• Tate Britain
• Tate Liverpool
• Tate St Ives
• Turner Prize
• Tate in Space (Virtual artwork)

References