National Gallery of British Art is much more commonly known as the Tate Gallery - named after its founder, industrialist Sir Henry Tate. It was his private collection formed the basis for the future museum, representing the art of the UK from 1500 to the present day. The gallery was opened to the public in 1897. At the moment, there is stored more than 60 000 exhibits - paintings, drawings, engravings.

During the Second World War gallery building suffered from the bombing, but almost all the exhibits were evacuated, and those that it was impossible to take out - safely sheltered and protected. After the war the gallery was reopened in 1949.

The museum building was expanded several times and finished building. In 1987 it was opened Clore Gallery, which exhibited the most extensive collection of paintings by Turner. The oldest painting in the museum - portrait of a man in a black hat (1545) John Betts. Here visitors can see a picture of Hogarth, Reynolds, Gainsborough, Constable and many other British and European masters.

Part group Tate galleries Tate Modern gallery is showing a collection of European and American paintings, created after 1900. It is located in a former power station, completely converted into a museum. In the halls of the gallery are works by Kandinsky, Malevich and Chagall. It is noteworthy that the Tate Modern hosts paintings are not in chronological order, as is customary in most museums and groups them by topic: "Still, the subject, the real life," "Landscape and Environment", "historical painting", "Nude, action body. "