Page 55 - Studio International - April 1973

The Tate Gallery: acquisitions, exhibitions,

trustees, future developments

TRANSCRIPT OF A DISCUSSION HELD AT THE TATE GALLERY ON BEHALF OF STUDIO

INTERNATIONAL ON 5 JANUARY, 1973. INTERVIEWER: RICHARD CORK. THOSE PRESENT:
SIR NORMAN REID (DIRECTOR), RONALD ALLEY (KEEPER, MODERN COLLECTION),
RICHARD MORPHET (ASSISTANT KEEPER, MODERN COLLECTION), ANNE SEYMOUR
(ASSISTANT KEEPER, MODERN COLLECTION), MARTIN BUTLIN (KEEPER, BRITISH COLLECTION),
AND MICHAEL COMPTON (KEEPER, DEPARTMENT OF EXHIBITIONS AND EDUCATION).

From left to right : Michael Compton, Richard Morphet, Anne Seymour, Sir Norman Reid, Ronald Alley, Martin Butlin.

trouble. Trustees used to bring in works entirely on bring forward a work on his own initiative, but would
ACQUISITIONS their own initiative, and the then director was often refer it to me.
faced with a situation in the board meeting where RC: Doesn't that rather cut away from the function
he had works which he himself had never been of a trustee ?
consulted about. but which he had to either speak NR: It can be said to do so. ButI think it.s absolutely
Richard Cork: Since the Tate's Report for 1970- for or against or consider at five minutes' notice. vital if we're going to have any sort of considered
72 * has recently been published, and since a large When I took over this was one of the first things to be policy of acquisitions, because you may say it was
part of that report is devoted to a detailed catalogue rectified. and it was agreed that no trustee would a criticism of the trustees themselves that they
of purchases over those two years, I want to start by tended to bring forward works some of which were
discussing the whole question of ACQUISITIONS. in our view entirely unsuited to the collection, and
Who chooses them, and what consensus of opinion which tended, because of refusals, to damage our
between director, staff and trustees has to be relationship with dealers. The dealers got tired of
reached before a work can be acquired ? having works put forward which were subsequently
Norman Reid : In so far as I act as a sort of control not bought.
and filter between the staff and the board, although Michael Compton: It happened with artists, too.
I've always taken the view that anyone who tries to NR : So the situation we.ve got to at the moment as
build up a national collection must take an entirely far as the trustees are concerned, and this has often
different view from the approach you would adopt been stated at board meetings, is that while they
when buying for yourself, nevertheless I do see that will never buy something which the director has
the collection must be to a degree coloured by the said he doesn't want, equally they don.t feel
director if he is in a controlling position. And I think obliged to buy everything the director brings forward.
the director of the Tate. as it's at present set up, does So they have that degree of negative control.
sit in quite a strong position vis-à-vis what is to be Whereas the point of view of the staff is really
purchased or even acquired by gift. So that the different : they are fundamentally initiators, and not
proposals by and large come from the side of the all of their proposals in fact go through to the Board.
permanent staff, whether the director or any member So to this degree I must be blamed for anything that
of the staff ; and they comparatively rarely come from doesn't happen which might have happened had I
trustees. pursued every enthusiasm.
RC: Why is this ? Martin Butlin: It.s partly a question of choice. At
NR : Because in the past we had a great deal of the last Board meeting, for instance, we brought
forward more pictures than we could possibly
*The Tate Gallery 1970-72. Published by the Tate afford. The new Stubbs painting of a Couple of
Gallery at £1.25. Richard Cork Foxhounds was one of them, and what I thought was

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