Catalogue description Tate Britain Website

Please see information at Divisional level.

This series contains more than one link to the 'snapshots' of this website. For some websites, the URL may change periodically. Despite this change to the URL these websites are part of the same record series as they represent the department or organisation's presence on the web at the time. Occasionally, more than one domain URL to the same website may run in parallel creating an overlap.

The original Tate Gallery, now Tate Britain, is located at Millbank in London, opened in 1897 on the site of the former Millbank Penitentiary. Its official name was the National Gallery of British Art, but it became popularly known as the Tate Gallery after its founder Sir Henry Tate. This name was not officially adopted, however, until 1932.

To house its growing collection, the building was expanded several times. Funding for galleries for the modern international collection were given by Lord Duveen and opened in 1926. Lord Duveen also supported the building of the great central sculpture galleries in 1937, designed by J. Russell Pope and Romaine Walker. A major extension in the north-east corner, designed by Llewellyn-Davies, Weeks, Forestier and Bor opened in 1979.

In the same year, the Gallery took over the adjacent disused military hospital, enabling the building of the new Clore Gallery, which was opened in 1987 with the support of the Clore Foundation. This provided much needed housing for The Turner Bequest of 300 oil paintings and many thousands of drawings and watercolours by Britain's great Romantic artist, J.M.W. Turner.

By about the late 1980s it was clear that the Tate Collection had hugely outgrown the Millbank site. It was decided to create a new gallery in London to display the international modern component of the Tate Collection. For the first time London would have a dedicated museum of modern art and meanwhile the Tate building at Millbank would return to its original function as the national gallery of British art. The Tate Gallery at Millbank was re-launched as Tate Britain in March 2000.

Completing the re-launch of Tate Britain, the Tate Centenary Development was opened in November 2001. This provided Tate Britain with ten new, and five refurbished, galleries as well as the new Manton Entrance on Atterbury Street.