The original Tate was called the National Gallery of British Art, situated on
Millbank,
Pimlico, London at the site of the former
Millbank Prison. The idea of a National Gallery of British Art was first proposed in the 1820s by
Sir John Leicester, Baron de Tabley. It took a step nearer when
Robert Vernon gave his collection to the
National Gallery in 1847. A decade later John Sheepshanks gave his collection to the
South Kensington Museum (later the
Victoria & Albert Museum), known for years as the National Gallery of Art (the same title as the Tate Gallery had). Forty years later
Sir Henry Tate who was a sugar magnate and a major collector of
Victorian art, offered to fund the building of the gallery to house British Art on the condition that the State pay for the site and revenue costs. Henry Tate also donated his own collection to the gallery. It was initially a collection solely of modern British art, concentrating on the works of modern—that is Victorian era—painters. It was controlled by the National Gallery until 1954. Following the death of
Sir Hugh Lane in the sinking of the
RMS Lusitania in 1915, an oversight in his will meant that the collection of European modern art he had intended to go to Dublin controversially went to the Tate instead, which expanded its collection to include foreign art and continued to acquire contemporary art. In 1926 and 1937, the art dealer and patron
Joseph Duveen paid for two major expansions of the gallery building. His father had earlier paid for an extension to house the major part of the Turner Bequest, which in 1987 was transferred to a wing paid for by
Sir Charles Clore. Henry Courtauld also endowed Tate with a purchase fund. By the mid 20th century, it was fulfilling a dual function of showing the history of British art as well as international modern art. In 1954, the Tate Gallery was finally separated from the National Gallery. opened in 1988. During the 1950s and 1960s, the visual arts department of the
Arts Council of Great Britain funded and organised temporary exhibitions at the Tate Gallery including, in 1966, a retrospective of
Marcel Duchamp. Later, the Tate began organising its own temporary exhibition programme. In 1979 with funding from a Japanese bank a large modern extension was opened that would also house larger income generating exhibitions. In 1987, the Clore Wing opened to house the major part of the Turner bequest and also provided a 200-seat auditorium. (The "Centenary Development", in 2001, provided improved access and public amenities) opened in 1993. In 1988, an outpost in north west England opened as Tate Liverpool. This shows various works of modern art from the Tate collection as well as mounting its own temporary exhibitions. In 2007, Tate Liverpool hosted the
Turner Prize, the first time this has been held outside London. This was an overture to Liverpool's being the
European Capital of Culture 2008. In 1993, another offshoot opened,
Tate St Ives. It exhibits work by modern British artists, particularly those of the
St Ives School. Additionally the Tate also manages the
Barbara Hepworth Museum and Sculpture Garden, which opened in 1980. opened in 2000. Neither of these two new Tates had a significant effect on the functioning of the original London Tate Gallery, whose size was increasingly proving a constraint as the collection grew. It was a logical step to separate the "British" and "Modern" aspects of the collection, and they are now housed in separate buildings in London. The original gallery is now called Tate Britain and is the national gallery for British art from 1500 to the present day, as well as some modern British art.
Tate Modern, in
Bankside Power Station on the south side of the
Thames, opened in 2000 and now exhibits the national collection of modern art from 1900 to the present day, including some modern British art. In the late 2000s, the Tate announced a new development project to the south of the existing building. According to the museum this new development would "transform Tate Modern. An iconic new building will be added at the south of the existing gallery. It will create more spaces for displaying the collection, performance and installation art and learning, all allowing visitors to engage more deeply with art, as well as creating more social spaces for visitors to unwind and relax in the gallery." Arts philanthropist
John Studzinski donated more than £6million to the project. The extension to Tate Modern opened in 2016 as The Switch House and, in 2017, was renamed the Blavatnik Building after Anglo-Ukrainian billionaire Sir
Leonard Blavatnik, who contributed a "substantial" amount of its £260m cost. The youngest person to be awarded a residency at the Tate is
Travis Alabanza. ==Tate Digital==