Artist Rooms - On tour with The Art Fund

Joseph Beuys, Pregnant Woman with Swan, 1959
© Estate of Joseph Beuys/DACS 2008

ARTIST ROOMS is an important new public collection of international contemporary art, shared across the UK through a unique collaboration between The Art Fund, Tate and National Galleries of Scotland.  Assembled by collector and curator Anthony d’Offay over a 30 year period, it comprises over 700 works, and takes the form of 50 rooms by 25 artists, including Diane Arbus, Joseph Beuys, Vija Celmins and Damien Hirst.

The idea behind the collection is to show individual artists’ work in depth, in one or more ‘rooms’ of their work, and to show them all across the UK so that as many people as possible can experience them. Anthony d’Offay discovered art through works in public collections as a child in Leicester and as a student at Edinburgh University – and wanted to ensure young people today could have the same opportunity.
 

Andy Warhol, Portrait of Joseph Beuys, 1980
© The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts/ARS, NY and DACS, London 2008 ARTIST ROOMS on Tour with The Art Fund

ARTIST ROOMS - The Collection
The ARTIST ROOMS collection was acquired for the nation in 2008 in a part-gift, part-sale-at-cost agreement, with financial support from The Art Fund, the National Heritage Memorial Fund, and the Scottish and British Governments. Art collector and curator Anthony d'Offay received only the original cost of the collection and it is considered to be one of the most generous and imaginative gifts of art ever made to UK galleries. The collection is jointly owned and managed by Tate and National Galleries of Scotland on behalf of the nation, and they are also responsible for managing the tour programme.

ARTIST ROOMS - The Tour
2009 saw for the first time a collection of this size being shared with galleries across the UK in this way - with a UK-wide tour enabled by funding from The Art Fund and the Scottish Government. The Art Fund and the Scottish Government are continuing to support the touring exhibitions in 2010, enabling people from Orkney to St Ives to experience ARTIST ROOMS and share in this captivating collection.

As well as the exhibitions themselves, The Art Fund’s support is also enabling museums and galleries to develop imaginative and dynamic ways of engaging people with ARTIST ROOMS - by funding additional educational and promotional activities directly to individual venues.

To find out more about the collection, visit Tate or National Galleries of Scotland websites for an in-depth look.

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