This month the Trustees of the Tate Gallery are meeting. Apparently they have already made up their minds, to separate one of the odder, although at times stimulating, hybrids of the museum world: the Tate as the gallery of British art and the Tate as the gallery of modern art, and they may well unveil their decision then.
For the Gallery, this is just the latest phase in a process of rethinking itself with every generation. The art critic and Tate trustee David Sylvester remembers such a split being discussed thirty years ago, while, by contrast, the last director, Alan Bowness liked the Tate as a conglomerate of small galleries: a sculpture museum; the Turner collection; British painting; contemporary art, and so on. The gallery’s present director, Nicholas Serota, is facing up to the fact that today, excluding the Turners, only one-fifth of the collections can be on display at any time. If funds are to be raised for more space, then the gallery must decide what that space would be for. It seems that the masterplan, compiled by former Tate curator Richard Francis, is recommending that the existing galleries be given over to British art, from the sixteenth century to the present day, while another building, either already in existence, or to be built, but in either case not far from Millbank, will become the gallery of modern art. A flow of art between the two is envisaged, so that Francis Bacon, for example, could be in both, or only one of them, at any given time.
The increase in space would allow a far greater representation of eighteenth-century painting, as well as many nineteenth-century classics such Millais’ “The boyhood of Raleigh” and “Ophelia”, both long in store. On the modern side, more space would enable the gallery to keep more of its classics permanently on display—the Rothko room and the gallery’s strong holdings of Abstract Expressionists, for example—although the present policy of regularly rehanging pictures in different contexts would continue. A new building could also face up to the logistical problems presented by so much contemporary art: vast canvases, dispersed installations, massive weights (the Serra sculptures currently on show required the floor to be shored up), and ultra-sensitive materials.
The administration would remain united, at least for the present, with Nick Serota as director for both.
David Sylvester, art critic
If we were to do things in the French style, in a rational and centralised way—and there’s a lot to be said both for and against that—we would join the Victoria and Albert Museum’s holdings of British art to the Tate. Could we do that, I’d be entirely in favour of splitting the Tate. If we did, I’m very attracted to the suggestion that Battersea Power station should house the modern part: what a suitable purpose for one of our truly great contributions to the Modern movement! But the difficulty of getting there by public transport is a real problem.
David Posnett, Leger Galleries, dealer in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British painting
If Nick Serota can raise the money for his plans then I would support them, provided the bulk of the historic British collection was on display.
Paul Johnson, journalist
Lumping British art with international modern art under the single roof of the Tate has always been anomalous and is now becoming intolerable. The powers that be at the Tate tend to be more interested in ‘the modern’ than in the British tradition, so many fine or interesting British paintings are rarely if ever displayed, and to get through to those that are one has to wade one’s way through off-putting modernist rubbish, with the risk of tripping over artistic piles of bricks or tearing your clothes on sharp bits of dustbin sculpture. So let us split them up, have two collections, two directors and two galleries. But the British collection should stay in the Tate, which is a suitable building, and the modern stuff should be moved to a specially designed emporium where it should feel at home
David Landau, art historian and editor of Print Quarterly
Yes, the Tate should split. It makes no sense as it is now, as neither of its collections can be displayed properly. All non-British pictures before World War I should be transferred to the National Gallery, and those later in date to a new Modern Art Museum. Of the British paintings, I would transfer a choice of the best (up to World War I) to the National Gallery, where they would be seen, as they deserve, among the best of all other Western Schools. With the remainder, a full, comprehensive survey of painting in this country during the last four centuries should be created.
I believe there are enough pictures to represent this School adequately in three collections, as I would naturally expect the best of post-World War I British pictures to be present in the new Modern Art Museum. Thus, some of the best examples of British painting could be seen in the National Gallery and the Modern Art Museum, while the less important, but, for some, equally interesting, would have ample space of their own.
John Richardson, author of A Life of Picasso
The Tate collections have long needed to be split: traditional British art in the present building; modern British (twentieth-century, or post-1945?) and foreign Schools elsewhere, except perhaps for the jumbo Moore bronzes, which could be recycled for a Thatcher monument, or other suitable purposes. To allow for confrontations across the years and maximum cross-pollination, these divisions should not be too rigorously enforced; nor should other public collections be raided in the name of institutional uniformity. I hate art ghettoes.
Leslie Waddington, Waddington Galleries, dealer in modern and contemporary art
In my view the Tate should probably divide into two separate entities, one for British art and one for Modern art, although I presume that certain British artists would be present in both collections. In New York there are four museums which are involved in twentieth-century art: the Museum of Modern Art; the Metropolitan; the Guggenheim and the Whitney, this last being the only one that exclusively shows American art. They are run by separate trustees and staff and compete in various ways. When the Tate divides up, the two sections should likewise be totally divorced, which would avoid the centrality of power being in too few hands.
Giuliano Briganti, art historian and art critic
It seems to me to be right to make the Tate into a museum entirely devoted to British art, from its beginnings down to the present day. If the English paintings in the National Gallery could be included (and I imagine that is not possible), it would make for a truly remarkable museum—a real tribute to the “Englishness of English art”.
Lord Gowrie, art critic and Chairman, Sotheby’s Europe
I think the modern collection should be rehoused (the present building does not suit it), but as close to the Tate as possible.
Werner Schmalenbach, founding director of the Museum of Nordrhein-Westphalia
I think the idea of splitting the collection of five centuries of British art from the modern section is a good one. There are two reasons for this: first, the collection of international modern art and the British historical collections are out of proportion with one another, and if they were separated, that problem would disappear. Second, a purely national collection is not governed by such high criteria of quality as an international collection must be. This means that there are two parameters. I would not, however, make the separation too rigid. There should be a few outstanding British artists in both sections, even if it means a kind of devaluation of those British artists represented only in the national collections.
Robert Rosenblum, art historian and art critic
Loving both Augustus Egg and Pablo Picasso and visiting them for decades under the same roof, I feel sentimental about tearing them asunder forever. Nevertheless, both logic and practical reality now demand the divorce of such odd couples, and I can only concur, though with a compromise recommendation. I believe that the British historical galleries should conclude in the late nineteenth century (c. 1880), and everything later should be integrated with the international modern collection. Since the British holdings far outnumber the foreign ones, the shuffle will have to be deft; and clearly, secondary British works will have to be displayed together in subordinate spaces. But as far as possible, the best British artists should join a global chorus if only in temporary, experimental ways. Sickert, for example, might be seen with Vuillard; Lewis with Severini; Collins with Klee; Wadsworth with Dalí; Nicholson with Morandi; Sutherland with Lam; Hamilton with Warhol, etc. I have always cherished British insularity, but the Chunnel is coming and the EC is here.
Pierre Schneider, journalist and art historian
If Paul had known what was to befall him on his way to Damascus, he would have taken another road. There are people who wouldn’t dream of visiting a museum of British art, others who think modern art is unspeakable. Being unexpectedly faced by samples of one or the other could convert some to forms of expression which they might have ignored for the rest of their lives. The splitting of the Tate seems logical. Has logic ever produced a good museum?
Sir Anthony Caro, artist
For years it has not been clear exactly what the Tate is. Americans I have known have seen it as a kind of Whitney, but that’s not really right. Britain does need a proper, tip-top museum of modern art; and that does mean splitting the Tate. For British artists it’s important that they should be able to match their work against the best international modern art. A museum of modern art would mean that we would have to up-grade our holdings and get more important twentieth-century works. Just think what Stuttgart, say, was able to put together in just over a decade. Of course, it will mean that modern art will need to be given far more importance in this country, as indeed it is in some European countries. Both the building and the collection will need money from the government and elsewhere. But I do believe that Nick Serota and the Tate chairman Dennis Stevenson have the sense of purpose and the energy to make it happen.
Sean Scully, artist
I’m not really in favour of splitting the Tate. I’ve grown up liking it the way it is, with the English art constantly juxtaposed with that from other places. That seems healthy. I don’t think the English need to nurture their sense of isolation; that already seems to be quite mature.
However, if it’s being done to honour British art rather than to satisfy the mundane demands of space packaging, that could be quite interesting. It depends on what the motive is.
Henry Meyric Hughes, director of Exhibitions Department, the South Bank Centre, London
The arguments for splitting the collections at the Tate have been thoroughly, and convincingly, rehearsed. However, this can only be successfully achieved along undogmatic lines and in a spirit of goodwill and co-operation between our leading national institutions. Two aspects which will need careful consideration will be the future role of the Tate Gallery’s outposts, in Liverpool and elsewhere, and the special exhibiting needs of work produced in the last twenty to thirty years. There may be good arguments for establishing a ‘Temporary Contemporary’ in London, where the Tate Gallery could share an involvement with other institutions in restoring London to a position of eminence on the international contemporary art scene.
Anthony Gormley, sculptor
The art of our time is expansive: its need for space and light is particular and reflects the conditions in which it is produced. I think division is a good idea since the present Tate building, apart from the major Duveen galleries, cannot answer that need. The new building must be able to do the job properly. Old industrial buildings can often do this better than purpose-built “museum” architecture because they are closer to the conditions in which work is made today. My favourite candidate as a building for twentieth-century art would be, not Battersea Power Station, but the old London Electricity Board Bankside generating station on the Southbank opposite St Paul’s, at present empty and for sale. It is a strong late work by Gilbert Scott with hundreds of thousands of square feet of top-lit space.