Tate Britain
Encyclopedia
Tate Britain is an art gallery situated on Millbank
in London, and part of the Tate
gallery network in Britain
, with Tate Modern
, Tate Liverpool
and Tate St Ives
. It is the oldest gallery in the network, opening in 1897. It houses a substantial collection of the works of J. M. W. Turner.
on the site of Millbank Prison
. The front part of the building was designed by Sidney R. J. Smith with a classical portico
and dome
behind. Construction, undertaken by Higgs and Hill
, commenced in 1893. The gallery opened on 21 July 1897 as the National Gallery of British Art, but became commonly known as the Tate Gallery, after its founder Sir Henry Tate. There have been several extensions over the years. The central sculpture gallery was designed by John Russell Pope
.
Crises during its existence include flood damage to work from the River Thames
and bomb damage during World War II, though most of the collection was in safe storage elsewhere, and a large Stanley Spencer
painting, deemed too big to move, had a protective brick wall built in front of it.
The gallery housed and displayed both British and Modern collections, but was renamed "Tate Britain" in March 2000, before the launch of Tate Modern
, since which time it has been dedicated to the display of historical and contemporary British art
only.
Tate Britain includes the Clore Gallery of 1987, designed by James Stirling
, which houses work by J. M. W. Turner.
The front entrance is accessible by steps. A side entrance at a lower level has a ramp for wheelchair access. The gallery provides a restaurant and a cafe, as well as a Friends room, open only to members of the Tate. This membership is open to the public on payment of an annual subscription. As well as administration offices the building complex houses the Prints and Drawings Rooms (in the Clore galleries), as well as the Library and Archive in the Hyman Kreitman Reading Rooms. The restaurant features a mural by Rex Whistler
.
Tate Britain and Tate Modern are now connected by a high speed boat along the River Thames
, which runs from Millbank Millennium Pier
immediately outside Tate Britain. The boat is decorated with spots, based on paintings of similar appearance by Damien Hirst
. The lighting artwork incorporated in the pier's structure is by Angela Bulloch
.
, John Latham
, Douglas Gordon
, Sam Taylor-Wood
, Marcus Gheeraerts II, though these, like the rest of the collection, are subject to rotation.
The gallery also organises career retrospectives of British artists and temporary major exhibitions of British Art. Every three years the gallery stages a Triennial exhibition in which a guest curator provides an overview of contemporary British Art. The 2003 Tate Triennial was called Days Like These. Art Now is a small changing show of a contemporary artist's work in a dedicated room.
Tate Britain hosts the annual and usually controversial Turner Prize
exhibition, featuring four artists under the age of fifty, selected by a jury chaired by the director of Tate Britain. This is spread out over the year with the four nominees announced in May, the show of their work opened in October and the prize itself given in December. Each stage of the prize generates media coverage, and there have also been a number of demonstrations against the prize, notably since 2000 an annual picket
by Stuckist
artists.
Tate Britain has attempted to reach out to a different and younger audience with Late at Tate Britain on the first Friday of every month, with half-price admission to exhibitions, live music and performance art. Other public involvement has included the display of visitors', as opposed to curators', interpretation of certain artworks.
can claim similar expansiveness, but with less depth). More recent artists include David Hockney
, Peter Blake
and Francis Bacon
. Works in the permanent Tate collection, which may be on display at Tate Britain include:
The Tate collection is supported by BP. Recently, Tate Britain has unveiled a £45 million ($70.16 million) gallery makeover scheme designed by London-based practice Caruso St John Architects.
When the Pre-Raphaelite
painter and President of the Royal Academy
, John Everett Millais
, died in 1896, the Prince of Wales (later to become King Edward VII) chaired a memorial committee, which commissioned a statue of the artist. This was installed at the front of the gallery in the garden on the east side in 1905. On 23 November that year, the Pall Mall Gazette
called it "a breezy statue, representing the man in the characteristic attitude in which we all knew him".
In 1953, Tate Director, Sir Norman Reid
, attempted to have it replaced by Rodin
's John the Baptist, and in 1962 again proposed its removal, calling its presence "positively harmful". His efforts were frustrated by the statue's owner, the Ministry of Works. Ownership was transferred from the Ministry to English Heritage
in 1996, and by them in turn to the Tate. In 2000 the statue was removed to the rear of the building.
Millbank
Millbank is an area of central London in the City of Westminster. Millbank is located by the River Thames, east of Pimlico and south of Westminster...
in London, and part of the Tate
Tate Gallery
The Tate is an institution that houses the United Kingdom's national collection of British Art, and International Modern and Contemporary Art...
gallery network in Britain
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, with Tate Modern
Tate Modern
Tate Modern is a modern art gallery located in London, England. It is Britain's national gallery of international modern art and forms part of the Tate group . It is the most-visited modern art gallery in the world, with around 4.7 million visitors per year...
, Tate Liverpool
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 Corporation...
and Tate St Ives
Tate St Ives
Tate St Ives is an art gallery in St Ives, Cornwall, England, exhibiting work by modern British artists, including work of the St Ives School. The three storey building, designed by architects Evans and Shalev, lies on the site of an old gas works, overlooking Porthmeor Beach. It was opened in...
. It is the oldest gallery in the network, opening in 1897. It houses a substantial collection of the works of J. M. W. Turner.
History
It is housed in the Tate's original premises on MillbankMillbank
Millbank is an area of central London in the City of Westminster. Millbank is located by the River Thames, east of Pimlico and south of Westminster...
on the site of Millbank Prison
Millbank Prison
Millbank Prison was a prison in Millbank, Pimlico, 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 transported to Australia...
. The front part of the building was designed by Sidney R. J. Smith with a classical portico
Portico
A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls...
and dome
Dome
A dome is a structural element of architecture that resembles the hollow upper half of a sphere. Dome structures made of various materials have a long architectural lineage extending into prehistory....
behind. Construction, undertaken by Higgs and Hill
Higgs and Hill
Higgs and Hill was a major British construction company responsible for building some of London's finest buildings.-History:The Company was established in 1874 by the merger of the firm of Thomas Hill with the firm of William Higgs...
, commenced in 1893. The gallery opened on 21 July 1897 as the National Gallery of British Art, but became commonly known as the Tate Gallery, after its founder Sir Henry Tate. There have been several extensions over the years. The central sculpture gallery was designed by John Russell Pope
John Russell Pope
John Russell Pope was an architect most known for his designs of the National Archives and Records Administration building , the Jefferson Memorial and the West Building of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC.-Biography:Pope was born in New York in 1874, the son of a successful...
.
River Thames
The River Thames flows through southern England. It is the longest river entirely in England and the second longest in the United Kingdom. While it is best known because its lower reaches flow through central London, the river flows alongside several other towns and cities, including Oxford,...
and bomb damage during World War II, though most of the collection was in safe storage elsewhere, and a large Stanley Spencer
Stanley Spencer
Sir Stanley Spencer was an English painter. Much of his work depicts Biblical scenes, from miracles to Crucifixion, happening not in the Holy Land but in the small Thames-side village where he was born and spent most of his life...
painting, deemed too big to move, had a protective brick wall built in front of it.
The gallery housed and displayed both British and Modern collections, but was renamed "Tate Britain" in March 2000, before the launch of Tate Modern
Tate Modern
Tate Modern is a modern art gallery located in London, England. It is Britain's national gallery of international modern art and forms part of the Tate group . It is the most-visited modern art gallery in the world, with around 4.7 million visitors per year...
, since which time it has been dedicated to the display of historical and contemporary British art
British art
British art could refer to:* Art of the United Kingdom - post 1707* English art* Irish art* Scottish art* Welsh art...
only.
Tate Britain includes the Clore Gallery of 1987, designed by James Stirling
James Stirling (architect)
Sir James Frazer Stirling FRIBA was a British architect. He is considered to be among the most important and influential British architects of the second half of the 20th century...
, which houses work by J. M. W. Turner.
Facilities
Rex Whistler
Reginald John 'Rex' Whistler was a British artist, designer and illustrator.-Biography:Rex Whistler was born in Eltham, Kent, the son of Henry and Helen Frances Mary Whistler...
.
Tate Britain and Tate Modern are now connected by a high speed boat along the River Thames
River Thames
The River Thames flows through southern England. It is the longest river entirely in England and the second longest in the United Kingdom. While it is best known because its lower reaches flow through central London, the river flows alongside several other towns and cities, including Oxford,...
, which runs from Millbank Millennium Pier
Millbank Millennium Pier
Millbank Millennium Pier is a pier on the River Thames, in London, United Kingdom. It is served by boats operating under licence from London River Services and is situated close to the Tate Britain art gallery on Millbank, between Lambeth Bridge and Vauxhall Bridge on the west bank of the...
immediately outside Tate Britain. The boat is decorated with spots, based on paintings of similar appearance by Damien Hirst
Damien Hirst
Damien Steven Hirst is an English artist, entrepreneur and art collector. He is the most prominent member of the group known as the Young British Artists , who dominated the art scene in Britain during the 1990s. He is internationally renowned, and is reportedly Britain's richest living artist,...
. The lighting artwork incorporated in the pier's structure is by Angela Bulloch
Angela Bulloch
Angela Bulloch , is an artist who often works with sound and installation; she is recognised as one of the Young British Artists.-Life and career:...
.
Shows
The main display spaces show the permanent collection of historic British art, as well as contemporary work. It has rooms dedicated to works by one artist, such as: Tracey EminTracey Emin
Tracey Karima Emin RA is a British artist of English and Turkish Cypriot origin. She is part of the group known as Britartists or YBAs ....
, John Latham
John Latham (artist)
John Aubrey Clarendon Latham, was a British conceptual artist who lived for many years in England. He believed that violence and conflict between the people of the world is the result of ideological differences...
, Douglas Gordon
Douglas Gordon
Douglas Gordon is a Scottish artist; he won the Turner Prize in 1996 and the following year he represented Britain at the Venice Biennale...
, Sam Taylor-Wood
Sam Taylor-Wood
Samantha "Sam" Taylor-Wood OBE , born Samantha Taylor, is an English filmmaker, photographer, and visual artist. Her directorial feature film debut came in 2009 with Nowhere Boy, a film based on the childhood experiences of The Beatles songwriter and singer John Lennon...
, Marcus Gheeraerts II, though these, like the rest of the collection, are subject to rotation.
The gallery also organises career retrospectives of British artists and temporary major exhibitions of British Art. Every three years the gallery stages a Triennial exhibition in which a guest curator provides an overview of contemporary British Art. The 2003 Tate Triennial was called Days Like These. Art Now is a small changing show of a contemporary artist's work in a dedicated room.
Tate Britain hosts the annual and usually controversial Turner Prize
Turner Prize
The Turner Prize, named after the painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist under the age of 50. Awarding the prize is organised by the Tate gallery and staged at Tate Britain. Since its beginnings in 1984 it has become the United Kingdom's most publicised...
exhibition, featuring four artists under the age of fifty, selected by a jury chaired by the director of Tate Britain. This is spread out over the year with the four nominees announced in May, the show of their work opened in October and the prize itself given in December. Each stage of the prize generates media coverage, and there have also been a number of demonstrations against the prize, notably since 2000 an annual picket
Stuckist demonstrations
Stuckist demonstrations since 2000 have been a key part of the Stuckist art group's activities and have succeeded in giving them a high profile both in Britain and abroad...
by Stuckist
Stuckism
Stuckism is an international art movement founded in 1999 by Billy Childish and Charles Thomson to promote figurative painting in opposition to conceptual art...
artists.
Tate Britain has attempted to reach out to a different and younger audience with Late at Tate Britain on the first Friday of every month, with half-price admission to exhibitions, live music and performance art. Other public involvement has included the display of visitors', as opposed to curators', interpretation of certain artworks.
Permanent collection
Tate Britain is the national gallery of British art from 1500 to the present day. As such, it is the most comprehensive collection of its kind in the world (only the Yale Center for British ArtYale Center for British Art
The Yale Center for British Art is an art museum in New Haven, Connecticut at Yale University which houses the most comprehensive collection of British Art outside the United Kingdom...
can claim similar expansiveness, but with less depth). More recent artists include David Hockney
David Hockney
David Hockney, CH, RA, is an English painter, draughtsman, printmaker, stage designer and photographer, who is based in Bridlington, Yorkshire and Kensington, London....
, Peter Blake
Peter Blake (artist)
Sir Peter Thomas Blake, KBE, CBE, RDI, RA is an English pop artist, best known for his design of the sleeve for the Beatles' album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. He lives in Chiswick, London, UK.-Career:...
and Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon (painter)
Francis Bacon , was an Irish-born British figurative painter known for his bold, austere, graphic and emotionally raw imagery. Bacon's painterly but abstract figures typically appear isolated in glass or steel geometrical cages set against flat, nondescript backgrounds...
. Works in the permanent Tate collection, which may be on display at Tate Britain include:
- The Painter and his Pug by William HogarthWilliam HogarthWilliam Hogarth was an English painter, printmaker, pictorial satirist, social critic and editorial cartoonist who has been credited with pioneering western sequential art. His work ranged from realistic portraiture to comic strip-like series of pictures called "modern moral subjects"...
- Newton by William BlakeWilliam BlakeWilliam Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age...
- Horse Attacked by a Lion by George StubbsGeorge StubbsGeorge Stubbs was an English painter, best known for his paintings of horses.-Biography:Stubbs was born in Liverpool, the son of a currier and leather merchant. Information on his life up to age thirty-five is sparse, relying almost entirely on notes made by fellow artist Ozias Humphry towards the...
- Giovanna Baccelli by Thomas GainsboroughThomas GainsboroughThomas Gainsborough was an English portrait and landscape painter.-Suffolk:Thomas Gainsborough was born in Sudbury, Suffolk. He was the youngest son of John Gainsborough, a weaver and maker of woolen goods. At the age of thirteen he impressed his father with his penciling skills so that he let...
- Sketch for Hadleigh CastleHadleigh Castle (painting)Hadleigh Castle is an oil painting by the English painter John Constable.John Constable visited Hadleigh Castle in 1814 and made a minute drawing of the castle as preparation for ten oil sketches and a single painting. The oil painting was produced in 1829 and exhibited at the Royal Academy in the...
by John ConstableJohn ConstableJohn Constable was an English Romantic painter. Born in Suffolk, he is known principally for his landscape paintings of Dedham Vale, the area surrounding his home—now known as "Constable Country"—which he invested with an intensity of affection... - The Great Day of His Wrath by John MartinJohn Martin (painter)John Martin was an English Romantic painter, engraver and illustrator.-Biography:Martin was born in July 1789, in a one-room family cottage, at Haydon Bridge, near Hexham in Northumberland, the 4th son of Fenwick Martin, a one time fencing master...
- The Lady of ShalottThe Lady of Shalott (painting)The Lady of Shalott is an 1888 oil-on-canvas painting by the English Pre-Raphaelite painter John William Waterhouse. The work is a representation of a scene from Lord Alfred Tennyson's 1832 poem of the same name, in which the poet describes the plight of a young woman isolated under an...
by John William WaterhouseJohn William WaterhouseJohn William Waterhouse was an English painter known for working in the Pre-Raphaelite style. He worked several decades after the breakup of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, which had seen its heydey in the mid-nineteenth century, leading him to have gained the moniker of "the modern Pre-Raphaelite"... - OpheliaOphelia (painting)Ophelia is a painting by British artist Sir John Everett Millais, completed between 1851-52. Currently held in the Tate Britain in London, it depicts Ophelia, a character from Shakespeare's play Hamlet, singing before she drowns in a river in Denmark....
by John Everett MillaisJohn Everett MillaisSir John Everett Millais, 1st Baronet, PRA was an English painter and illustrator and one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.-Early life:... - The Death of Chatterton by Henry WallisHenry WallisHenry Wallis was an English Pre-Raphaelite painter, writer and collector.Born in London on 21 February 1830, his father's name and occupation are unknown. When in 1845 his mother, Mary Anne Thomas, married Andrew Wallis, a prosperous London architect, Henry took his stepfather's surname. His...
- Beata BeatrixBeata BeatrixBeata Beatrix is an oil on canvas painting by Pre-Raphaelite artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti, completed in 1872. It depicts Beatrice Portinari from Dante Alighieri's poem La Vita Nuova at the moment of her death. Rossetti modeled Beatrice after his deceased wife and frequent model Elizabeth Siddal....
by Dante Gabriel RossettiDante Gabriel RossettiDante Gabriel Rossetti was an English poet, illustrator, painter and translator. He founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848 with William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais, and was later to be the main inspiration for a second generation of artists and writers influenced by the movement,... - The Golden Bough by J. M. W. TurnerJ. M. W. TurnerJoseph Mallord William Turner RA was an English Romantic landscape painter, watercolourist and printmaker. Turner was considered a controversial figure in his day, but is now regarded as the artist who elevated landscape painting to an eminence rivalling history painting...
- The Merry-Go-Round by Mark Gertler
- The Resurrection, CookhamCookhamCookham is a village and civil parish in the north-easternmost corner of Berkshire in England, on the River Thames, notable as the home of the artist Stanley Spencer. It lies north of Maidenhead close to the border with Buckinghamshire...
by Stanley SpencerStanley SpencerSir Stanley Spencer was an English painter. Much of his work depicts Biblical scenes, from miracles to Crucifixion, happening not in the Holy Land but in the small Thames-side village where he was born and spent most of his life... - Norham Castle, Sunrise by J.M.W. Turner
- Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a CrucifixionThree Studies for Figures at the Base of a CrucifixionThree Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion is a 1944 triptych painted by the Irish-born artist Francis Bacon. The work is based on the Eumenides—or Furies—of Aeschylus' The Oresteia, and depicts three writhing anthropomorphic creatures set against a flat burnt orange background...
by Francis BaconFrancis Bacon (painter)Francis Bacon , was an Irish-born British figurative painter known for his bold, austere, graphic and emotionally raw imagery. Bacon's painterly but abstract figures typically appear isolated in glass or steel geometrical cages set against flat, nondescript backgrounds... - Three Ladies Adorning a Term of Hymen by Joshua ReynoldsJoshua ReynoldsSir Joshua Reynolds RA FRS FRSA was an influential 18th-century English painter, specialising in portraits and promoting the "Grand Style" in painting which depended on idealization of the imperfect. He was one of the founders and first President of the Royal Academy...
- The Cholmondeley LadiesThe Cholmondeley LadiesThe Cholmondeley Ladies is an early 17th century British oil painting depicting two women seated upright and side by side in bed, each holding a baby. Measuring 886 by 1723mm, it was painted on a wooden panel, probably in the first decade of the 17th century...
by unknown 17th-century artist - The Mud Bath by David BombergDavid BombergDavid Garshen Bomberg was an English painter, and one of the Whitechapel Boys.Bomberg was one of the most audacious of the exceptional generation of artists who studied at the Slade School of Art under Henry Tonks, and which included Mark Gertler, Stanley Spencer, C.R.W. Nevinson and Dora Carrington...
- Recumbent Figure by Henry MooreHenry MooreHenry Spencer Moore OM CH FBA was an English sculptor and artist. He was best known for his semi-abstract monumental bronze sculptures which are located around the world as public works of art....
- Nocturne: Blue and Gold - Old Battersea BridgeNocturne: Blue and Gold - Old Battersea BridgeNocturne: Blue and Gold – Old Battersea Bridge is a painting by the American-born British artist James McNeill Whistler, now held in the collections of Tate Britain. It was painted around 1872–5....
by James McNeill WhistlerJames McNeill WhistlerJames Abbott McNeill Whistler was an American-born, British-based artist. Averse to sentimentality and moral allusion in painting, he was a leading proponent of the credo "art for art's sake". His famous signature for his paintings was in the shape of a stylized butterfly possessing a long stinger...
The Tate collection is supported by BP. Recently, Tate Britain has unveiled a £45 million ($70.16 million) gallery makeover scheme designed by London-based practice Caruso St John Architects.
Statue of Millais
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was a group of English painters, poets, and critics, founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais and Dante Gabriel Rossetti...
painter and President of the Royal Academy
Royal Academy
The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly, London. The Royal Academy of Arts has a unique position in being an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects whose purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment and...
, John Everett Millais
John Everett Millais
Sir John Everett Millais, 1st Baronet, PRA was an English painter and illustrator and one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.-Early life:...
, died in 1896, the Prince of Wales (later to become King Edward VII) chaired a memorial committee, which commissioned a statue of the artist. This was installed at the front of the gallery in the garden on the east side in 1905. On 23 November that year, the Pall Mall Gazette
Pall Mall Gazette
The Pall Mall Gazette was an evening newspaper founded in London on 7 February 1865 by George Murray Smith; its first editor was Frederick Greenwood...
called it "a breezy statue, representing the man in the characteristic attitude in which we all knew him".
In 1953, Tate Director, Sir Norman Reid
Norman Reid (museum director)
Sir Norman Robert Reid was an arts administrator and painter and was the Director of the Tate Gallery from 1964 to 1979-Early life:Norman Reid was born in Dulwich, London, and was the son of a shoemaker...
, attempted to have it replaced by Rodin
Auguste Rodin
François-Auguste-René Rodin , known as Auguste Rodin , was a French sculptor. Although Rodin is generally considered the progenitor of modern sculpture, he did not set out to rebel against the past...
's John the Baptist, and in 1962 again proposed its removal, calling its presence "positively harmful". His efforts were frustrated by the statue's owner, the Ministry of Works. Ownership was transferred from the Ministry to English Heritage
English Heritage
English Heritage . is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport...
in 1996, and by them in turn to the Tate. In 2000 the statue was removed to the rear of the building.
Transport connections
| Service | Station/Stop | Lines/Routes served | Distance from Tate Britain |
|---|---|---|---|
| London Buses | Tate Britain | 87 London Buses route 87 London Buses route 87 is a Transport for London contracted bus route in London, United Kingdom. The service is currently contracted to Go-Ahead London.-History:... |
|
| London Underground | Pimlico Pimlico tube station Pimlico is a London Underground station in Pimlico, City of Westminster. It is on the Victoria line between Victoria and Vauxhall in Zone 1. The station opened on 14 September 1972 more than a year after the rest of the line had become fully operational.... |
0.4 mile walk | |
| National Rail | Vauxhall Vauxhall station Vauxhall station is a National Rail, London Underground and London Buses interchange station in central London. It is at the Vauxhall Cross road junction opposite the southern approach to Vauxhall Bridge over the River Thames in the London district of Vauxhall... |
South West Trains South West Trains South West Trains is a British train operating company providing, under franchise, passenger rail services, mostly out of Waterloo station, to the southwest of London in the suburbs and in the counties of Surrey, Hampshire, Dorset, Devon, Somerset, Berkshire, and Wiltshire and on the Isle of Wight... |
0.5 mile walk |
London River Services  |
Millbank Millennium Pier Millbank Millennium Pier Millbank Millennium Pier is a pier on the River Thames, in London, United Kingdom. It is served by boats operating under licence from London River Services and is situated close to the Tate Britain art gallery on Millbank, between Lambeth Bridge and Vauxhall Bridge on the west bank of the... |
Tate to Tate | 0.2 mile walk |