Tate Britain

Tate Britain is the national museum for British art, housed on Millbank in central London and founded in 1897 to create a national collection of British art. It holds works spanning from the Tudor period to the present and is a primary repository for 19th- and 20th-century British painting and sculpture.

The displays cover British art from roughly the 1500s to contemporary practice, with particularly strong holdings of J.M.W. Turner, pre-Raphaelite and Victorian painting, and modern British artists. The gallery layout includes dedicated rooms for major movements and artists and rotating temporary exhibitions that draw loans from other national and international collections.

The collection began when industrialist Sir Henry Tate endowed funds and artworks to form a national gallery for British art; the Millbank building opened in the late 19th century and has been extended and altered several times since to accommodate growing collections and temporary exhibitions. The gallery has also reorganised displays repeatedly to present different chronological and thematic narratives of British art.

Tate Britain sits on the north bank of the River Thames in the City of Westminster, near the Pimlico area and within central London. It is accessible by multiple Tube and bus routes and is a short distance from other cultural institutions along the Thames.

• Admission: The permanent collection is free to enter; special exhibitions normally require a ticket.
• Best time to visit: Weekday mornings are usually quieter for viewing the main collection and the Turner rooms.

What to See #

• Clore Gallery (Turner display): A purpose-built gallery added to the Millbank complex to display Joseph Mallord William Turner works from the Turner Bequest, providing a concentrated display of paintings and watercolours.