Biography
Tate holds the national collection of British art dating from 1500 as well as a collection of international modern and contemporary art from 1900. It is now a group of four galleries: Tate Britain and Tate Modern in London, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives.
It began in 1889 when Henry Tate, an industrialist who had made his fortune as a sugar refiner, offered his collection of British 19th-century art to the nation. The National Gallery of British Art (Tate Gallery), at Millbank, now known as Tate Britain, was built and opened in 1897. The arts and antiques dealers Sir Joseph Joel Duveen (1843–1908) and his son Lord Joseph Duveen (1869–1939) made significant financial contributions to the gallery and large extensions were added including seven new rooms to display the Turner Bequest in 1910 and the Duveen Sculpture Galleries, the first galleries built specifically for sculpture in England, in 1937.
Tate takes a networked approach to working with partners across the UK. Networks support peer-to-peer exchange and collaboration on programmes as well as enriching what audiences can access locally. It has a range of strategies that enables its collections to be shared with regional galleries and museums. One of these, the Artists' Rooms initiative (established in 2008 and jointly owned by the National Galleries Scotland), sees a selection of a single artist's work drawn from the Anthony D'Offay collection tour to regional museums and galleries across the UK.
The Contemporary Art Society, who was housed in and near the Tate Gallery until... has donated over 313 works
