London Art Tours - for the visitor to London who wishes to view and experience the incomparable art and architecture of the city, its galleries and exhibitions.

[London Art Tours - National Gallery, Tower Bridge, London Eye, Tate Modern]

Tate Britain

Millbank, London, SW1
tel: 020-7887 8000
www.tate.org.uk
tube: Pimlico

daily 10.00 - 18.00

admission: free (charges for temporary exhibitions)

Five centuries of British Art are shown in the galleries of Tate Britain.

Opened in 1897 the gallery was the gift of the Liverpool sugar magnate Sir Henry Tate who had the gallery built to show his own art collection to the public. The original building has been extended several times during the last hundred years, most recently in 2001 with the Centenary Development.

Chronologically displayed, the galleries of Tate Britain take you from the 15th century, through the Restoration period to Reynolds and Gainsborough and the Golden Age of British Painting in the 18th century, the landscapes of Constable and Turner to the Victorian Age with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and narrative painting. The 20th century begins with the influence of French Impressionism on artists such as Sickert, the avant-garde Vorticists, abstraction in the work of Nicholson and Hepworth through to the School of London painters like Bacon and Auerbach. The century ends with the brashness of Britart from the YBAs (Young British Artists) and the prominence of British artists at the beginning of the 21st century is demonstrated with contemporary works.

The Turner Bequest is shown in the purpose-built Clore Galleries. These paintings, watercolours and drawings were the bequest of Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851) whom many regard as the greatest British painter of all time. There is no better place to study his work than here at Tate Britain.

Much debate and controversy usually surrounds the annual Turner Prize awarded to a British artist under 50 for outstanding work in the previous 12 months. An exhibition of nominated artists usually takes place at the end of the year with the winner announced in December.

Though we should not have favourites, this is London Art Tours choice of the most enjoyable gallery to visit. Rarely very busy, the galleries are imposing but well laid out and give you the opportunity to enjoy the works. The permanent collection is regularly re-hung so there is always the chance to make new discoveries.

Hilliard, Elizabeth I, c.1575
Hogarth, Calais Gate, 1748
Reynolds, Three Ladies Adorning a Term of Hymen, 1773
Gainsborough, Giovanna Baccelli, 1782
Constable, Flatford Mill, 1816-7
Turner, War & Peace, 1842
Millais, Ophelia, 1851-2
Egg, The Past & Present, 1858
Rossetti, Beata Beatrix, 1864-70
Sickert. Ennui, c.1914
Gertler, The Merry-go-round, 1916
Moore, Recumbent Figure, 1938
Epstein, Jacob & the Angel, 1940-1
Bacon, Studies for Three Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion, 1942-4

There is nowhere better to understand and appreciate the development of art in Britain than here at Tate Britain. And no one better able to describe that history than a London Art Tours guide.

[Tate Britain]