That phrase, \u201cthe western tradition\u201d, is itself something of a land grab. Until fairly recently the National Gallery was understood to be a collection of western European painting. In 2014, however, it paid \u00a318.6 million for Men of the Docks<\/a>, a painting by American artist George Bellows. Unlike his fellow countrymen John Singer Sargent and James McNeill Whistler<\/a>, Bellows had never travelled to Europe and could not be considered an honorary Englishman. <\/p>\n According to the gallery<\/a>, the purchase represented \u201ca new direction in its acquisition policy\u201d. They now sought to \u201crepresent paintings in the western European tradition, rather than solely those made by artists working in western Europe\u201d. Men of the Docks dated to 1912, close to the chronological border between the National Gallery and Tate collections. For those fond of viewing London\u2019s museums as a turf war, it was a shot across Tate\u2019s bows. <\/p>\n Rather than fighting over this or that patch of art history, surely London\u2019s museums can agree that all art is a \u201ccontinuum\u201d? <\/p>\n This article is part of our State of the Arts series. These articles tackle the challenges of the arts and heritage industry \u2013 and celebrate the wins, too.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cTo me there will always be only one national collection,\u201d noted Hendy in 1953, \u201cand I don\u2019t believe that carving it up in this rigid way is in anybody\u2019s interest.\u201d <\/p>\n Despite the gallery\u2019s rhetoric of give-and-take, over the years Tate was repeatedly left feeling bruised, after being obliged to let the National Gallery take back British paintings that the Tate had come to consider its own. This included one of the highlights from the National Gallery\u2019s Joseph Wright of Derby show: An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump<\/a> was given to the National Gallery by the politician Edward Tyrrell in in 1863. The National Gallery later passed it to Tate, only to take it back in 1986.<\/p>\n Under an influential model developed in late 19th-century Paris, the Mus\u00e9e du Luxembourg served as purgatory for modern French painters. After a decent interval, after any initial controversy as well as the artist had died, works that passed the test of time were promoted to the heaven of the Louvre. <\/p>\n For much of Tate\u2019s history, it has been viewed as the Luxembourg to Trafalgar Square\u2019s Louvre. In 1935, National Gallery director Kenneth Clark opposed the idea that Tate might achieve complete independence from his institution. It \u201cwould deprive us of the purgatorial function of the Tate\u201d. It would also force Tate to decide whether it was a \u201cNational Gallery of British Art\u201d or a \u201cmodern art gallery\u201d.<\/p>\n Worse of all, Clark noted, if Tate did decide it was a modern art gallery, the two institutions would have to agree a historical date at which modern painters became old masters. In 1954, the National Gallery and Tate Act<\/a> appeared to grant Tate the independence it craved, while ordaining that the two galleries should periodically consult each other about loans and transfers, in order to ensure that all paintings were \u201con view in the best context\u201d.<\/p>\n In 1957 Hendy suggested that all paintings \u201cgraduate\u201d to Trafalgar Square when they reached their 100th birthday. Rothenstein refused such a rigid rule. The history of art was not \u201ca regular and predictable process\u201d, he insisted. As the \u201cfounding fathers of the modern movement\u201d, Van Gogh<\/a>, C\u00e9zanne and Seurat would have to remain at Tate, regardless of how much time had passed.<\/p>\n Under Nicholas Serota\u2019s directorship Tate blossomed into a constellation of galleries in the 1990s. Tate Liverpool demonstrated how a contemporary art space could regenerate post-industrial cities. In 2016 Tate Modern opened its own, \u00a3220 million annexe. Meanwhile it seemed that the National Gallery was happy (Sainsbury Wing aside) to expand within its existing footprint.<\/p>\n If Project Domani treads on Tate toes, there will be repercussions. When New York\u2019s Metropolitan Museum of Art announced the gift of Leonard Lauder\u2019s collection of Cubist paintings in 2013 and later opened the Met Breuer as a temporary annexe for contemporary art, New York\u2019s Whitney and Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) were concerned. Fearing that relationships with \u201ctheir\u201d funders, collectors and critics were under threat, the Metropolitan Museum of Art was told to keep their hands off their patch<\/a>. <\/p>\n
\n
\nThe history of the gallery turf war<\/h2>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/images.theconversation.com\/files\/729833\/original\/file-20260414-57-ajabz.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip\")
\n Mistervlad\/Shutterstock<\/a><\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/counter.theconversation.com\/content\/280481\/count.gif\")
<\/p>\n