UK art galleries — Tate Britain
The UK has a huge number of amazing art galleries, and many of them are free. I am on a mission to visit as many of them as possible, and review them as I go. Yesterday I visited Tate Britain in London.
Tate Britain
Tate Britian is on Millbank in London and is open 10am to 6pm every day. Whilst it is advertised as being free to enter, they do encourage everyone to donate money to maintain the gallery.
As a side note, I would encourage everybody to donate at least something when you visit a ‘free’ gallery. Having visited many galleries around the world, it is pretty unusual to offer visitors free entry. We are very fortunate in the UK to have access to these kinds of internationally famous collections, and I therefore think it is only right to donate some money to see this wonderful art.
William Blake exhibition
The main reason I visited was to see the recently opened William Blake exhibition. The exhibition is open until February 2020 and is £18 to enter. I paid £9 as I have a National Art Pass. This card gets you either free or half price entry into most galleries in the UK, I highly recommend it.
William Blake is famous as both an artist and a poet. A lot of the works in the exhibition marry his poetry with his art.
Blake was active in the late 18thC to the early 19th. His art tackles themes such as sexuality, politics and religion. He was quite a controversial man in his time, and like many artists, his work has really only been appreciated for the genius that it is since his death.
I spent about 90 minutes looking around the exhibition, it is fascinating and it is highly recommended.
Eighteeth and nineteenth century British art
The galleries I enjoy the most at Tate Britain cover the period from about 1820 to 1945. This was such a creative time in art across the world. Two movements I particularly enjoy are the Pre-Raphaelites and the Impressionists.
From left to right, top to bottom:
- ‘The Black Brook’, 1908, by John Singer Sargent
- ‘Ellen Terry as Lady MacBeth’, 1889, by John Singer Sargent
- ‘Sancta Lilias’, 1874, by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
- ‘Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose’, 1885, by John Singer Sargent
- ‘Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion’, 1944, Francis Bacon
- ‘Norham Castle, Sunrise’ 1845, JMW Turner
- ‘Bathing’, 1911, by Duncan Grant
- ‘An Athlete Wrestling with a Python’, 1877, Frederic Leighton
Tate Britain has a huge range of art, dating back hundreds of years. These are just some of my favourites.
My experience has been that Tate Britain is considerably less busy than it’s more contemporary sister gallery, Tate Modern. It has a nice lunch style cafe and a more up to date restaurant too. Easiest way to get there is the Victoria Line to Pimilico.
