Craig Simpson
THE TORY LOVING ANTI WOKE TELEGRAPH
Sat, 21 January 2023
Curators at the Tate have been working on a rehang intended to create a ‘more inclusive narration of British art and history’ - Tate Images
Tate Britain has filled its galleries with paintings linked to slavery and colonialism while removing prized national artworks in an “inclusive” overhaul that critics have branded a “polemic against the past”.
Curators have been working on a rehang intended to create a “more inclusive narration of British art and history”.
Paintings linked to the British Empire have been taken out of storage and displayed with labels explaining connections to racism, colonialism and the slave trade.
Meanwhile, various landscapes, classical scenes, and portraits with uncontroversial histories - including works by English masters William Hogarth and John Constable - have been removed.
Joseph van Aken’s An English Family At Tea is labeled: ‘Tea was a bitter drink sweetened with sugar produced in British colonies’ - Tate Images
The “Tate Britain Rehang”, which was first proposed by its director Alex Farquharson in 2018 and began last year, was conceived as a chronological overview of British art over five centuries.
Covid interrupted the work, and the Black Lives Matter movement prompted the gallery to address racial inequality and its links to Britain’s “colonial past” through the sugar trade.
But since a project manager was hired last spring to “relate art to society in ways that resonate for us today”, dozens of paintings with slavery links have been taken out of Tate storage and put on display in chronologically ordered galleries.
First is the 1610 Marcus Gheeraerts’ portrait A Man in Classical Dress, whose sitter Peter Herbert made money from “colonial trading interests” with the Virginia Company which “colonised the east coast of America”, according to its new label.
Viewers of a newly added 1699 still life by Edward Collier are told that the globe depicted in the painting shows the Pacific Ocean, an area “Europe was actively colonising at the time”.
Marcus Gheeraerts’ A Man in Classical Dress states its sitter Peter Herbert made money from ‘colonial trading interests’ - Alamy Stock Photo
Moving into the 18th century, visitors now see Joseph van Aken’s 1720 work An English Family At Tea, and an accompanying label explaining: “Tea was a bitter drink sweetened with sugar produced in British colonies.”
Among the dozens of artworks now on display is Benjamin West’s 1775 canvas Mrs Worrell as Hebe, which states that the sitter’s husband made money from a plantation which “used the labour of enslaved Africans”.
A similar point is made alongside several other newly added portraits, including Thomas Gainsborough’s painting of 1784 work The Baillie Family, the label for which states that the children in the painting would grow up to inherit wealth generated by “enslaved people”.
The ‘Tate Britain Rehang’ was first proposed by its director Alex Farquharson in 2018 - James Veysey/Camera Press
Other new additions come with explanations of London receiving “goods from colonised countries”, the “violence underpinning” British colonialism in the Caribbean, and the “colonial sentiment” of the British to their Indian servants.
Artworks from the 20th century do not escape scrutiny, either, with the label for a 1914 painting by British artist and writer Wyndham Lewis recently added to the gallery walls states that he supported Adolf Hitler for a period.
However, other comparatively innocent works have been removed from Tate Britain’s walls.
Sir Edwin Henry Landseer’s 1827 painting, A Scene at Abbotsford, depicting some dogs has been taken down, as has Sir Joshua Reynolds’ 1785 image of an angelic child (Child’s Portrait in Different View).
William Hogarth’s 1734 treatment of Paradise Lost, entitled Satan, Sin and Death is no longer available to view, nor is John Constable’s bucolic landscape at Flatford Mill, of 1816.
Thomas Gainsborough’s The Baillie Family’s label states children in the painting would grow up to inherit wealth generated by ‘enslaved people’
A project manager was hired by the Tate last spring to ‘relate art to society in ways that resonate for us today’ - Guy Bell /Alamy Stock Photo
“Art becomes a means to make a political point, it’s basically an excuse to stick a label on the wall explaining why this or that was bad, and attack the past. It is totally moralistic.”
Other historical social ills have been highlighted in the rehang. New labels point out the Enclosure Acts caused suffering for the rural poor, that a painting of some rural workers by George Stubbs possibly “denies the harsh realities of work for sentimental effect”, and that sellers of the Daily Worker were concerned that many would die in “future war defending capitalism”.
Tate Britain has said that the rehang will only be completed by May this year, and artworks may come and go as the project progresses. A spokeswoman said: “We are in the middle of redisplaying our British art collection to share more of the collection and our research about it with our visitors.
“The labels for works are regularly updated and we seek to share historical, artistic and cultural information that will help visitors enjoy and understand the paintings they are seeing.”
Sat, 21 January 2023
Curators at the Tate have been working on a rehang intended to create a ‘more inclusive narration of British art and history’ - Tate Images
Tate Britain has filled its galleries with paintings linked to slavery and colonialism while removing prized national artworks in an “inclusive” overhaul that critics have branded a “polemic against the past”.
Curators have been working on a rehang intended to create a “more inclusive narration of British art and history”.
Paintings linked to the British Empire have been taken out of storage and displayed with labels explaining connections to racism, colonialism and the slave trade.
Meanwhile, various landscapes, classical scenes, and portraits with uncontroversial histories - including works by English masters William Hogarth and John Constable - have been removed.
Joseph van Aken’s An English Family At Tea is labeled: ‘Tea was a bitter drink sweetened with sugar produced in British colonies’ - Tate Images
The “Tate Britain Rehang”, which was first proposed by its director Alex Farquharson in 2018 and began last year, was conceived as a chronological overview of British art over five centuries.
Covid interrupted the work, and the Black Lives Matter movement prompted the gallery to address racial inequality and its links to Britain’s “colonial past” through the sugar trade.
But since a project manager was hired last spring to “relate art to society in ways that resonate for us today”, dozens of paintings with slavery links have been taken out of Tate storage and put on display in chronologically ordered galleries.
First is the 1610 Marcus Gheeraerts’ portrait A Man in Classical Dress, whose sitter Peter Herbert made money from “colonial trading interests” with the Virginia Company which “colonised the east coast of America”, according to its new label.
Viewers of a newly added 1699 still life by Edward Collier are told that the globe depicted in the painting shows the Pacific Ocean, an area “Europe was actively colonising at the time”.
Marcus Gheeraerts’ A Man in Classical Dress states its sitter Peter Herbert made money from ‘colonial trading interests’ - Alamy Stock Photo
Moving into the 18th century, visitors now see Joseph van Aken’s 1720 work An English Family At Tea, and an accompanying label explaining: “Tea was a bitter drink sweetened with sugar produced in British colonies.”
Among the dozens of artworks now on display is Benjamin West’s 1775 canvas Mrs Worrell as Hebe, which states that the sitter’s husband made money from a plantation which “used the labour of enslaved Africans”.
A similar point is made alongside several other newly added portraits, including Thomas Gainsborough’s painting of 1784 work The Baillie Family, the label for which states that the children in the painting would grow up to inherit wealth generated by “enslaved people”.
The ‘Tate Britain Rehang’ was first proposed by its director Alex Farquharson in 2018 - James Veysey/Camera Press
Other new additions come with explanations of London receiving “goods from colonised countries”, the “violence underpinning” British colonialism in the Caribbean, and the “colonial sentiment” of the British to their Indian servants.
Artworks from the 20th century do not escape scrutiny, either, with the label for a 1914 painting by British artist and writer Wyndham Lewis recently added to the gallery walls states that he supported Adolf Hitler for a period.
However, other comparatively innocent works have been removed from Tate Britain’s walls.
Sir Edwin Henry Landseer’s 1827 painting, A Scene at Abbotsford, depicting some dogs has been taken down, as has Sir Joshua Reynolds’ 1785 image of an angelic child (Child’s Portrait in Different View).
William Hogarth’s 1734 treatment of Paradise Lost, entitled Satan, Sin and Death is no longer available to view, nor is John Constable’s bucolic landscape at Flatford Mill, of 1816.
Thomas Gainsborough’s The Baillie Family’s label states children in the painting would grow up to inherit wealth generated by ‘enslaved people’
- Hulton Fine Art Collection
Paintings of a man playing a flute, an idyllic roadside inn, and the religious image The Resurrection, Cookham by Sir Stanley Spencer - previously relabelled to highlight that there were generic black figures in the scene - are among the artworks removed.
Art critic JJ Charlesworth has derided the results of the rehang so far, telling the Telegraph: “There is a reflex now, which is to see the lens of historical evils, and that is a serious problem. There is a tendency to see the past through the lens of present obsessions.
“It reduces important national collections to the status of a social history document. The context of art-historical movements, what people in the past may have enjoyed artificially, culture, and even aesthetics are totally irrelevant to this approach, which is simply a polemic against the past.
Paintings of a man playing a flute, an idyllic roadside inn, and the religious image The Resurrection, Cookham by Sir Stanley Spencer - previously relabelled to highlight that there were generic black figures in the scene - are among the artworks removed.
Art critic JJ Charlesworth has derided the results of the rehang so far, telling the Telegraph: “There is a reflex now, which is to see the lens of historical evils, and that is a serious problem. There is a tendency to see the past through the lens of present obsessions.
“It reduces important national collections to the status of a social history document. The context of art-historical movements, what people in the past may have enjoyed artificially, culture, and even aesthetics are totally irrelevant to this approach, which is simply a polemic against the past.
A project manager was hired by the Tate last spring to ‘relate art to society in ways that resonate for us today’ - Guy Bell /Alamy Stock Photo
“Art becomes a means to make a political point, it’s basically an excuse to stick a label on the wall explaining why this or that was bad, and attack the past. It is totally moralistic.”
Other historical social ills have been highlighted in the rehang. New labels point out the Enclosure Acts caused suffering for the rural poor, that a painting of some rural workers by George Stubbs possibly “denies the harsh realities of work for sentimental effect”, and that sellers of the Daily Worker were concerned that many would die in “future war defending capitalism”.
Tate Britain has said that the rehang will only be completed by May this year, and artworks may come and go as the project progresses. A spokeswoman said: “We are in the middle of redisplaying our British art collection to share more of the collection and our research about it with our visitors.
“The labels for works are regularly updated and we seek to share historical, artistic and cultural information that will help visitors enjoy and understand the paintings they are seeing.”
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