Tate Britain has now raised the full £45m needed for its major refurbishment project, its director announced last month. Galleries in the south-east quadrant of the Millbank building are due to reopen in May next year followed by the rotunda in the autumn. The architect is Caruso St John.
The final major grant of £4.9m has just been confirmed by the Heritage Lottery Fund: £3m is for the refurbishment and £1.9m for digitisation and education work. The Tate Members has provided £1m, while other major donors include the Manton, Clore Duffield and Garfield Weston foundations.
Penelope Curtis, the director of Tate Britain, promises that most of the galleries will be used for a strictly chronological hang of the collection. The western suite of rooms will be for British art up to 1925 and those on the east for art up to the present.
There will be new dedicated rooms for works by William Blake, which are mainly on paper, and for sculpture by Henry Moore. The gallery will present six “focus” displays, lasting for half a year, initially including presentations on Constable’s A Cornfield, 1817, and the theme of “Trading with China”. Tate Britain’s Clore Gallery will continue to be used primarily for its Turners. During the refurbishment the gallery has been criticised for its temporarily reduced display of historic art.
Originally appeared in The Art Newspaper as 'Tate Britain will embrace chronology'