Tate’s art rehang is ‘polemic against the past’
Project highlights works linked to colonialism at the expense of paintings with uncontroversial histories
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 trying to create a “more inclusive narration of British art and history” have taken paintings linked to the British Empire out of storage to be 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.
The “Tate Britain Rehang”, proposed by the gallery’s director, Alex Farquharson in 2018 and begun last year, was conceived as a chronological overview of British art over five centuries.
Covid interrupted the project, 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
‘There is a tendency to see the past through the lens of present obsessions. That is a problem’
‘Art has become a means by which to make a political point, an excuse to explain why this or that was bad’
ways that resonate for us today”, dozens of paintings with slavery links have been taken out of storage and displayed 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 in the painting depicts the Pacific Ocean, an area “Europe was actively colonising at the time”.
Moving into the 18th century, visitors can see Joseph van Aken’s 1720 work An English Family At Tea, with a label explaining: “Tea was a bitter drink sweetened with sugar produced in British colonies.”
Among the dozens of works on display is Benjamin West’s 1775 canvas Mrs Worrell as Hebe, which states that the sitter’s husband made money from a plantation that “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”.
Other additions come with explanations of London receiving “goods from colonised countries”, the “violence underpinning” British colonialism and the “colonial sentiment” of the British towards their Indian servants.
Neither do artworks from the 20th century escape scrutiny, with the label for a 1914 painting by British artist and writer Wyndham Lewis recently added to the gallery walls stating that he once supported Adolf Hitler.
Other comparatively innocent works, such as Sir Edwin Henry Landseer’s 1827 painting, A Scene at Abbotsford, which features some dogs, have 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 Milton’s Paradise Lost, Satan, Sin and Death can no longer be viewed, nor can John Constable’s bucolic 1816 landscape Flatford Mill.
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 that have been removed.
JJ Charlesworth, an art critic, has derided the results of the rehang. He said: “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 arthistorical 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.
“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.”
Other historical social ills have been highlighted in the rehang. New labels point out that the Inclosure 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 a “future war defending capitalism”.
Tate Britain said the rehang will be completed by May and artworks may come and go as it progresses. “Labels are regularly updated. We seek to share historical, artistic and cultural information [to] help visitors enjoy and understand paintings,” a spokesman added.