In this two-year period Tate made 325 loans of a total of 1,833 works to 246 exhibitions at 215 different venues. By classification, the works lent consisted of 749 paintings (41%); 277 sculptures, reliefs, installations and new media (15%); and 807 works on paper (44%). Compared to the last biennium, there was an increase of 20% in the number of works lent. Loans were made in response to external requests from borrowing institutions and also to Tate-initiated programmes, these being Tate national partnerships, Tate international programmes and Tate exhibition tours. Long-term loans out and loans from the archive collections are not included in the above figures and are listed separately.
Of the 325 loans made, 286 were made in response to requests from external borrowers to lend to temporary exhibitions in the UK and abroad. Of these 286 loans, 169 (60%) were made to international venues and 117 (40%) were made to venues throughout the UK. This is an interesting change from the 2002–4 biennium which had a similar percentage split, but with the greater percentage of loans being made to the UK, not abroad. The increase in loans to overseas venues in this biennium reflects Tate’s increased international profile. A total of 944 total works were lent to exhibitions, of which 428 (46%) were paintings; 125 (13%) were sculptures, reliefs, installations and new media and 391 (41%) were works on paper.
We were been particularly pleased to support a number of exhibitions at newly opened venues in the UK through loans of work over this period. These included ten works to four separate exhibitions at Compton Verney in Warwickshire: a Wassily Kandinsky and a Piet Mondrian to Marina Warner: Only Make-Believe: Ways of Playing; a John Mortimer to Salvator Rosa: Wild Landscapes; four Vincent Van Gogh drawings to Van Gogh and Britain: Pioneer Collectors and a Joshua Reynolds to their permanent collection. The De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill-on-Sea also reopened in 2005 with Tate lending two works to its inaugural exhibition, Variety.
Overseas, there have been major loans of works by British artists from the collection to exhibitions featuring historic modern and contemporary British art. These include loans of Peter Blake to British Pop: The 1960s at Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao; works by Robyn Denny, William Tucker and Bernard Cohen to Stroll on! Aspects of British Abstract Art of the 1960s at the Musée d'Art Moderne et Contemporain in Geneva; and works by James Barry to James Barry at Crawford Municipal Art Gallery, Cork, marking two hundred years since the death of the artist.
Tate has also lent many new acquisitions from its collection. Particularly interesting is our first loan from the collection of performance art, the loan of a new acquisition from the Frieze Art Fair, Good Feelings in Good Times by Roman Ondak to six different venues in Istanbul, Brétigny-sur-Orge, Vilnius, Oslo, Amsterdam and Frankfurt.
As part of its National programme this biennium, Tate lent 81 works to nine partnership exhibitions. Along with exhibitions at each of the five original partnerships established in 2000 (Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery;, the New Art Gallery Walsall; the Potteries Art Gallery and Museum, Stoke-on-Trent; Sheffield Galleries and Museums Trust; and Abbot Hall Art Gallery and Blackwell, Kendal), three new institutions joined us as partners for an additional Visual Dialogues programme. These were Manchester Art Gallery, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, and the Laing Art Gallery in Newcastle. Exhibitions have ranged from large surveys to small ‘in focus’ displays.
