I.

Introduction

Tate Galleries, Britain’s major art galleries, tracing the evolution of British painting from the Tudors to the present day. The first of these, in London, was founded in 1897 as the Tate Gallery by the sugar magnate Sir Henry Tate, who had offered his collection of modern British paintings to the nation in 1890. To these were added other collections of British art previously bequeathed or presented to the nation, and the bequest by J. M. W. Turner of his paintings and watercolours. From the outset the intention had been to have a gallery that would adequately represent modern British art, and Tate Britain, as it has been known since 2000, now encompasses British art from the beginning of the 16th century to the present day (notably works by William Hogarth, William Blake, John Constable, Gabriel Rossetti, Stanley Spencer, Jacob Epstein, Henry Moore, David Hockney, Gilbert and George, and Damien Hirst). Tate Britain also mounts important loan exhibitions of British art. The Clore Gallery, opened in 1987 and designed by Sir James Stirling, houses the Turner Bequest. A major development completed in November 2001 at a cost of £32.3 million saw the creation of four new galleries within Tate Britain’s main building, and six new temporary exhibition spaces—the Linbury Galleries—established on the lower floor; five existing galleries were also refurbished, and a new main entrance created. In 2004 Tate Britain acquired the Barry Joule Collection, an archive of over 1,200 pieces including documents and photographs from the studio of Francis Bacon. These pieces will be studied before being put on display in the gallery.