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.

Tate Modern Bankside, SE1. Tel: 020-7887 8000 www.tate.org.uk tube: St Paul's/Southwark daily 10.00 - 18.00 (late night Fri/Sat until 22.00) admission: free (charges for special exhibitions)

From the moment it opened in May 2000 Tate Modern was a success. It is now the most visited museum in Britain and the third most popular in the world, rivalling the other great collections of modern art, the Pompidou Centre in Paris and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Tate Modern's collections begin in the year 1900 and include British and international modern art up to the present day. Rather than presented chronologically, the permanent collection is thematically displayed on Levels 3 and 5. Each of these four wings deals with an important movement or idea in twentieth and twenty-first century art. These are: Poetry and Dream (Surrealism) Material Gestures (Art after 1945) States of Flux (Cubism, Futurism and Vorticism) Energy and Process (Arte Povera) Where the theme is an historically-significant movement there are displays of seminal examples of the work but surrounded by art which predates and anticipates as well as later work which shows the effect of its legacy. Bizarrely, the building was originally an oil-fired power station which produced up to half of central London’s electricity before its closure in 1981. Triumphantly converted by the Swiss firm Herzog and de Meuron, the galleries retain the industrial aesthetic of the building such as the 325 feet high chimney and the monumental turbine hall. To enter this vast space is an unforgettable experience and in recent years this has been the location for a series of site-specific works by contemporary artists. Plans are currently underway for the expansion of the galleries into further parts of the building, including the construction of a 15-floor ‘ziggurat’ style extension and the conversion of the vast underground oil tanks to the south of the building. Again the architects will be Herzog and de Meuron and it is expected that ‘Tate 2’ will be completed by 2012. The range of work on display at Tate Modern is truly astonishing. So too is the scale of the building. More than 80 galleries display everything from iconic works of the twentieth century through to challenging and provocative contemporary works. Rodin, The Kiss, 1901-4 Modigliani, Head, 1911-2 Monet, Waterlilies, 1916 Picasso, The Three Dancers, 1925 Bonnard, The Table, 1925 Matisse, The Backs, 1909-29 Mondrian, Composition in Red & Blue, 1935 Dali, Metamorphosis of Narcissus, 1937 Pollock, Summertime 9A 1948, 1948 Matisse, The Snail, 1953 Rothko, Seagram Murals, 1958 Warhol, Brillo, 1964 Picasso, Nude with Necklace, 1968 Cragg, Britain Seen from the North, 1981 Landy, Scrapheap Services, 1995 PLEASE NOTE: It is the curatorial policy of Tate regularly to change its displays. With only a fraction of the 60,000 works in its ownership ever on public display it is essential to inquire in advance whether particular works will be on view. People often say that modern art is unintelligible but a London Art Tours guide will give you a unique insight into this amazing collection.