Throughout the period we have continued to build on the dynamic partnerships developed with major sponsors, while also beginning new collaborations. Tate’s association with UBS entered an exciting new era with UBS Openings, a three-year sponsorship of the Collection displays at Tate Modern and a vibrant programme of related events, including Saturday Live, the Family Zone and The Long Weekend, held over the late May Bank Holiday.
Other partnerships include at Tate Modern: sponsorship with Unilever on annual commissions for The Unilever Series, and Bloomberg for the ground-breaking interpretative tools at the gallery; at Tate Britain: partnerships with BP on the richly varied Collection displays and related events such as BP Saturdays, and Tate & Lyle for the educational programmes Ideas Factory and Art Trolley; for Tate Online, the award-winning partnership with BT; and, at Tate Liverpool, DLA Piper who are title sponsors of the Collection displays.
We were also delighted to welcome back The British Land Company PLC for their sponsorship of Tate Britain's Holbein in England exhibition, and to welcome AIG, our partners for Constable: The Great Landscapes at Tate Britain, as well as Access Industries for Kandinsky: The Path to Abstraction and BMW (UK) Ltd for Albers and Moholy-Nagy: From the Bauhaus to the New World, both at Tate Modern. Our corporate membership scheme reached its highest renewal rate yet at 80%, and the current number of organisations stands at 32. Tate Liverpool reached its highest level of corporate membership with 12 Corporate Partners and 25 Corporate Members.
Individuals, trusts, foundations and public sector bodies continue to play a major role in supporting exhibitions, acquisitions, conservation and education projects. Tate Britain's exhibition dedicated to Howard Hodgkin was made possible through the support of a small group of private donors, and our special acquisition groups ensured that we secured important works of art for the Collection by artists including Daniel Buren, Thomas Demand, Wolfgang Tillmans and Jeff Wall. The most significant acquisition during the period, made possible with the generous support of the National Heritage Memorial Fund, The Art Fund, Tate Members and an extraordinarily successful public campaign, was the purchase of JMW Turner's outstanding The Blue Rigi, Sunrise 1842.
