The Tate today announced a new collaboration with five museums and galleries nation-wide. The Tate Partnership Scheme is a joint initiative which will increase public access to the Tate Collection through a series of loans and exhibitions, and provide new opportunities for training and development. The Partnership Scheme will start in April 2000, initially for three years, and has been awarded £337,500 by the Heritage Lottery Fund.
In the next three years some 175 works from the Tate will be put on show in fifteen new displays that will be seen by at least 350,000 visitors to the partnership museums. The displays will include works by Picasso and Epstein at Walsall, Kandinsky, Stubbs and Matisse at Stoke-on-Trent, and Chagall and Klee at Sheffield. New forms of educational work and audience development will be explored. Opportunities for collaborations between curators at the galleries will be promoted, and training and development will be provided through secondments, seminars and a curators’ forum.
The galleries involved in the Tate Partnership Scheme are:
- Abbot Hall Art Gallery & Museum, Kendal
- The Castle Museum, Norwich
- Sheffield Galleries & Museums Trust
- The Potteries Museum & Art Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent
- The New Art Gallery, Walsall
The Scheme builds on the Tate’s past eight years of partnership with the Norwich Castle Museum and the East Anglia Art Foundation, and also on the successful staging of Tate Liverpool’s exhibition Urban at the Castle Museum in Nottingham and the recent exhibition of Rodin’s The Kiss in Lewes Town Hall, which was seen by more than 1,000 people a day.
Alan Howarth, Arts & Heritage Minister, said:
I am delighted that five galleries around the country are working with the Tate to create new exhibitions from its Collection. I welcome the sharing of expertise that this programme makes possible. Widening access to the great national institutions is of tremendous importance.
Anthea Case, Director of the Heritage Lottery Fund, commented:
The Heritage Lottery Fund is especially keen to support projects with an emphasis on audience development, and the Tate Partnership Scheme is an excellent example of this.
Sandy Nairne, Director of National Programmes at the Tate Gallery, said:
The Tate is looking forward to working closely with the five partner galleries, and seeing works from the Tate Collection enjoyed by more visitors around the country.