Important eighteenth-century and contemporary additions to Tate’s holdings

Last month the director of the Tate Gallery, Nicholas Serota, announced two major additions to its holdings. The Oppé collection, of over 3,000 works assembled by the scholar Paul Oppé, was acquired for £5 million, with help from the Heritage Lottery Fund and the NACF. This acquisition adds to the Tate’s eighteenth-century English landscape watercolours and drawings, which however, are still dwarfed by the holdings of the V&A and the British Museum. Equally important is the gift of fifty-six contemporary British and American paintings, sculptures, drawings and photographs by contemporary British art collector, Janet Wolfson de Botton, worth £2.3 million. She allowed the Tate to take its pick from her important collection and they selected works such as Andy Warhol’s last self portrait of 1986 and a large floorplate by Carl André.