Tate Gallery - Definition and Overview

Tate is a network of five galleries: Tate Britain (1897), Tate Liverpool (1988), Tate St Ives (1993), Tate Online (1998) and Tate Modern (2000).

The original Tate art gallery or museum, was officially titled the National Gallery of British Art, and was situated on Millbank in Pimlico, in London. It was founded in by Henry Tate with money earned from his sugar refineries. It was initially a collection of British art, concentrating on the works of modern—that is Victorian era-painters. It later expanded its collection to include foreign art, and so, in the twentieth century, became principally a gallery devoted to Modernism.

All Tate galleries share one collection. Since 2000 the 'British' and 'Modern' aspects of the collection have been housed in separate buildings in London, with the Modern collection moving to a converted power station on the south side of the Thames. The original gallery is now called Tate Britain to distinguish it from several other recently-opened Tate galleries in England, and is a national gallery for British art from 1500 to the present day.

Each year the museum organises the Turner Prize, given to a British artist under 50, which is the subject of great controversy as to what constitutes art.

Tate Galleries

• Tate Britain
• Tate Liverpool
• Tate St Ives
• Tate Modern
• Tate Online
• Tate in Space

External Link

• http://www.tate.org.uk/home/default.htm