London’s National Gallery Will Officially Begin Collecting Artworks Created After 1900
The decision ends a longstanding agreement between the National Gallery and the Tate concerning what kinds of art each museum will target
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London’s National Gallery has raised more than $500 million for an ambitious revamp that includes a new wing and an expansion into 20th-century art.
The changes mark the museum’s “largest transformation since its formation 200 years ago,” according to a statement from the gallery.
Since its founding in 1824, the National Gallery has been a premier destination for Western art dating back to the mid-13th century. Works by Renaissance masters like Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael hang in the gallery, as do paintings by 19th-century artists like Georges Seurat and Vincent van Gogh.
Quick fact: The National Gallery’s beginnings
The museum was founded in 1824 when the British government purchased 38 artworks from the estate of merchant John Julius Angerstein.
However, among the museum’s more than 2,000 paintings, only about two dozen were from the 20th century—including works by Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso, reports the New York Times’ Alex Marshall.
That’s partially due to an agreement with the Tate, which collects modern art and exhibits it across its four galleries, the Guardian’s Lanre Bakare reports. It was understood that post-1900 paintings were the Tate’s terrain.
That rule has bothered Gabriele Finaldi, the National Gallery’s director, since he assumed the position in 2016. It was “slightly frustrating to reach 1900 and then not go on,” he says, per the Guardian.
Abolishing the cutoff date is essential, Finaldi adds, because “as 1900 gets further and further away it will be natural for us to tell the bigger story.”
The case for changing the policy was also bolstered by the gender disparity in the museum’s collection. Of the more than 2,000 paintings it holds, only 27 are by women, the Guardian reports. The gallery hopes that by acquiring more 20th-century art, it will be able to tip the gender scales a bit.
To accommodate its new policy, the National Gallery also announced that it will be expanding its physical space with a new wing, to be designed by the winner of a global architecture competition “expected to attract both long established and exciting, younger architectural firms,” per the statement.
The new wing is expected to open in the early 2030s. Cash pledges for the National Gallery’s upgrades totaled a whopping £375 million (around $509 million). The sum includes two of the largest-ever reported single cash donations to a museum or gallery, according to the statement: One £150 million ($203 million) donation came from British venture capitalist Michael Moritz’s nonprofit Crankstart, while the Julia Rausing Trust pledged the same amount, per the London Times’ Nancy Durrant.
Keir Starmer, the British prime minister, says the donation is “fantastic news for the National Gallery and the arts in general,” per the Guardian, adding that it “boosts the economy, opens doors for educational experiences for young people and will make great art accessible for generations to come.”
Others are less certain that the National Gallery’s announcement—and its decision to walk back its agreement with the Tate—is good news for the art world. According to the Guardian’s Lanre Bakare, “senior sources” warn that the decision could create “bad blood” between the two institutions.
Publicly, Tate director Maria Balshaw is welcoming the news. She says the Tate will work closely with the National Gallery to “further the national collection as a whole,” the Guardian reports.
The museum’s expansion comes on the heels of its bicentennial, which it celebrated last year. As Finaldi told Smithsonian magazine’s Anne Wallentine in early 2024, “Public ownership and access to world-class paintings and art is just as vitally important now for a thriving civic society as it was in 1824, and these fundamental principles of excellence and access are still what guide us today.”