About the Collection
John William Waterhouse, The Lady of Shalott, 1888
Introduction
Tate holds the National Collection of British art from 1500 and international modern and contemporary art from 1900. Tate's Collection embraces all media from painting, drawing, sculpture and prints, to photography, video and film, installation and performance.
The Collection is displayed at Tate Britain, Tate Modern, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives and through loans to temporary national and international exhibitions and long loans. Tate rotates its displays at all sites, partly with the aim of giving exposure to as much of the Collection as possible.
Works on paper can be viewed by appointment in the Prints and Drawings Rooms at Tate Britain, which also houses the Turner Bequest.
Tate also houses the National Archive of British Art from 1900,
Tate's institutional records including material relating to the
Collection, and the Tate Library. The Tate Archive
contains manuscripts, notebooks, sketches, prints, documentation and
supporting material. The Archive and Library are accessible through the
Tate Library and Archive Collections: Hyman Kreitman Reading Rooms at Tate Britain.
Pablo Picasso, Weeping Woman,
Femme en pleurs 1937
The Scope of the Collection
Tate's Collection seeks to represent significant developments in art in all areas covered by its remit with artworks of outstanding quality and importance. The representation of British art encompasses work by artists defined by their contribution to its history and development rather than simply by nationality.
While it has traditionally focused on art from Western Europe and North America, Tate seeks to represent international modern and contemporary art from a global perspective and has recently expanded its holdings of work from Latin America, South-East Asia and Eastern Europe.
When the Tate Gallery opened in 1897, its Collection consisted of the 65 works gifted by Henry Tate to the Nation.
The Collection currently consists of 66,062 works of art* by 3,075 artists including:
- 4,930 paintings
- 1,690 sculptures
- 285 reliefs
- 333 installations
- 47,653 unique works on paper
- 13,272 prints on paper
- 329 blocks for printing
*Several works at Tate are part of the fabric of the buildings and do not appear in the Collection database.
Tate Collection Online
Every work in the Collection has its own online information page and the majority are illustrated, though this is not always possible due to copyright restrictions. If a work is currently on display at Tate this is indicated. If this indication is not present the work is either in storage or on loan.
The Artist A-Z lists all works except for those by JMW Turner. The Turner Bequest is accessible through the Turner Collection pages. The Subject Search enables the Collection to be navigated by subject matter. The illustrated Glossary lists terms used in the various texts. The New Acquisitions section lists the works recently acquired by Tate. You can save your own selections of works and return to these at any time using My Selection.
The digitisation of Tate Collection (the Insight project) was supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund and Big Lottery Fund.
