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Tate Gallery

 

Art museum in London housing the national collection of British painting and sculpture and of modern British and European art since c. 1870. It is named after Sir Henry Tate (1819 – 1899), a sugar refiner and inventor of the sugar cube, who donated his collection of Victorian art to the nation in 1890. The Neoclassical building, designed by Sidney R. J. Smith, opened in 1897. Originally administered by the National Gallery, the museum became completely independent only in 1954. In 1987 the Clore Gallery was built to house the principal collection of J.M.W. Turner's works. In 1988 a branch was opened in Liverpool. The Tate Modern, a converted power plant housing the modern collections, opened in 2000.

For more information on Tate Gallery, visit Britannica.com.

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British History: Tate Gallery
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In 1890 the sugar magnate Henry Tate gave 60 modern English paintings to the National Gallery provided that a gallery was made available. Eventually the government offered the prison site at Millbank, London, and the Tate Gallery opened in 1897. Wealthy benefactors have continued to aid expansion; in 1987 the Turner bequest was finally housed as the artist intended, in the extension funded by the Clore Foundation. The Bankside power station was converted into the Tate Modern, opened in 2000, and the original gallery was renamed Tate Britain.

 
Columbia Encyclopedia: Tate Gallery
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Tate Gallery, London, originally the National Gallery of British Art. The original building (in Millbank on the former site of Millbank Prison), with a collection of 65 modern British paintings, was given by Sir Henry Tate and was opened in 1897. It was extended by another gift of Tate's in 1899, and in 1910 the Turner wing was completed, the gift of Sir Joseph Duveen. A gallery of modern foreign art was added in 1916, and three new galleries for foreign art and one for the works of John Singer Sargent were opened in 1926. The museum was damaged in World War II but reopened in 1949. In 1987 the Clore Gallery was opened to display the gallery's collection of J. M. W. Turner works, which is the most extensive in the world. Now renamed the Tate Britain, the complex is devoted to British art. The Tate Modern, Britain's first national modern-art museum in 100 years, opened in a large, refurbished power station on the south bank of the Thames in 2000.

Bibliography

See J. K. M. Rothenstein, The Tate Gallery (1958).


 
 

 

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Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
British History. A Dictionary of British History. Copyright © 2001, 2004 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.  Read more
Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/ Read more