The National Gallery: on a collision course with Tate?

The National Gallery’s plans to build a £400 million extension and expand its displays to include 20th-century works are being seen by some in the art world as a direct threat to its London rival, the museum group Tate.

Some £375 million “has already been quietly raised behind the scenes” for The National Gallery’s Project Domani – an “astonishing achievement”, said The Art Newspaper. But the decision to start collecting more modern works could create “bad blood” with Tate, one source associated with the group told The Guardian. Another said it could put the two museums “at each other’s throats”.

‘Old rivalry’

The National Gallery is best known for its collection of Old Masters and 19th-century paintings, including works by Renoir, Monet, Da Vinci, Rembrandt, Turner and Van Gogh. But “for decades”, there’s been “tension” with the Tate over which institution “should be allowed to collect ‘modern’ art”.

Thirty years ago, there was an “official” agreement that The National Gallery would stick to a “cut-off point” at 1900 but that “has never sat well with bosses at Trafalgar Square”. The announcement that the gallery now plans to start collecting paintings from across the entire 20th century is a “shift that could revive an old rivalry”.

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“As 1900 gets further and further away, it will be natural for us to tell the bigger story,” said The National Gallery’s director Gabriele Finaldi. And he insists that the new acquisition strategy will be enacted in “collaboration” with Tate.

‘Dazzling coup’

The funds raised by The National Gallery so far include "the two largest ever known cash donations to any cultural institution, not just in Britain but globally”, Finaldi told The Art Newspaper. It's a “dazzling coup”, said Alastair Sooke in The Telegraph but, when the “applause dies away” there'll be “fundamental questions” over whether Project Domani will “throw into confusion the respective roles of The National Gallery and Tate".

Although Tate “officially might be all smiles”, behind the scenes it “must be bricking it” because the plans surely represent “a land grab”. This is a “bold decision” from The National Gallery, said The Art Newspaper, but hopefully it will lead to “an even greater exchange of loans” between the two galleries.

News of Project Domani comes at a particularly sensitive time for Tate, which has suffered a fall in visitor numbers and a “cash crisis” leading to redundancies, said Jonathan Jones in The Guardian. The museum group has put a brave face on the situation, recently channelling the “mythic rock band” Spinal Tap when it said that “its audience was not shrinking; just becoming more selective”.