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Tate is the (opened 1897 ), Tate Liverpool ( 1988 ), Tate St Ives ( 1993 ) and Tate Modern ( 2000 ), with a complementary website, Tate Online ( 1998 ). It was founded with the official title the '''National Gallery of British Art''' and was renamed after Henry Tate funded a building for it at Millbank in London . This was its sole venue until the end of the 20th century. The most significant change was the opening of Tate Modern, which then carried the modern part of the collection, while the original building was renamed Tate Britain to house the British part of the collection. Modern British work is split between the two. One of the Tate's most publicised activities is the Turner Prize .


HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT

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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 . The idea of a National Gallery of British Art was first proposed in the 1820s by Sir John Leicester, Baron de Tabley. It took a step nearer when Robert Vernon gave his collection to the National Gallery in 1847. A decade later John Sheepshanks gave his to the South Kensington Museum (later the Victoria & Albert Museum ), and for years that was known as the National Gallery of Art at the same time as the Tate Gallery was. Forty years later 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. It was controlled by the National Gallery until 1954.

In 1915, Hugh Lane bequeathed his collection of European Modern Art to Dublin, but controversially this went 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. 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 . 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 1993 an outpost in the West of England was opened, Tate St Ives . It exhibits work by modern British artists, particularly those of the St Ives School . Additionally the Tate also manages the Barbara Hepworth Museum And Sculpture Garden which opened in 1980.

In 1988 another offshoot opened as Tate Liverpool . This shows various of the works from the London Tates as well as mounting its own temporary displays. In 2007 Tate Liverpool will host the Turner Prize , the first time this has been held outside London. This is an overture to Liverpool's being the European Capital Of Culture 2008.

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 , in Bankside Power Station on the south side of the Thames , opened in 2000 and now exhibits the national collection of modern art from 1900 to the present day, including some modern British art. 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

Tate Online is the 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 opportunities 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.

Tate in Space was created in 2002 as an online artwork by artist Susan Alexis Collins in collaboration with the Tate. The web pages appear as part of the Tate Online web pages, alongside the pages for physical art galleries such as Tate Modern and Tate Liverpool, to give the impression that Tate in Space is intended as a genuine art gallery, albeit one orbiting the planet, and currently represented by the Tate Satellite. Tate in Space is interactive fiction, with each participant bringing their own fantasies to the project. There are also contributions from space art historians, architects and space scientists, so that the site is also thoroughly researched, blending fact and fiction. It was nominated in the Interactive Art category for the 2003 BAFTA Interactive awards.


ADMINISTRATION


The Tate receives a grant directly from the Treasury . 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). The Tate is also registered as a charity with the Charity Commission , but with the status of unregulated, which limits the Commission's normal powers over it.

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 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.

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 Chantrey bequest and accusations that favouritism resulted 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. The work is still popularly known as "The Bricks", and has entered the British public lexicon.

Each year, the Turner Prize is held at a Tate Gallery (historically 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) .

Charles Saatchi stated that an offer of a major gift of works was rejected by Serota. Serota responded that no such offer had been made.

In 2005 the '', 28 July 2005 . Retrieved 10 July 2007 .

In 2005, there was a scandal over the Tate's purchase of its trustee completed an investigation into this and censured the gallery for acting outside its legal powers.Alberge, Dalya (2006) "Tate's Ofili purchase broke charity law" ''The Times'' online, July 19, 2006. Accessed July 19, 2006

In 2006 a legal opinion was given that the Tate and National Gallery have no legal right to ownership of the Turner Bequest, as Turner's conditions for that had never been fulfilled and are still binding. jmwturner.org

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



REFERENCES



EXTERNAL LINKS

  • Tate Online — 65,000 works from the Tate Collection online, information on Tate's exhibitions and events programmes, and online learning resources.

  • Turner Worldwide - an ongoing online cataloguing of JMW Turner's work around the world. The ultimate goal is to create an authoritative catalogue raisonne that is freely accessible to all.

  • Turner Collection Online The online catalogue of Tate's collection of nearly 300 oil paintings and 30.000 works on paper by JMW Turner.

  • Tate in Space

  • Turner Museum