With Serota stepping down, it’s time for a radical rethink and devolution of power within Tate, argues David Gordon.
It is not generally known that what is now Tate Britain opened in 1897 as the National Gallery of British Art and was a department of the National Gallery. Twenty years later the gallery on Millbank was given its own director and board of trustees and three years later a new identity, National Gallery, Millbank. In 1932 the name was changed to the Tate Gallery, in honour of its sugar daddy and already its informal name. It was not until 1955 that it became fully independent of the National Gallery and owner of all the art in its galleries and vaults... Keep reading on The Art Newspaper
It is not generally known that what is now Tate Britain opened in 1897 as the National Gallery of British Art and was a department of the National Gallery. Twenty years later the gallery on Millbank was given its own director and board of trustees and three years later a new identity, National Gallery, Millbank. In 1932 the name was changed to the Tate Gallery, in honour of its sugar daddy and already its informal name. It was not until 1955 that it became fully independent of the National Gallery and owner of all the art in its galleries and vaults... Keep reading on The Art Newspaper