Tate St Ives



Tate St Ives is an art gallery in St Ives, Cornwall, England, exhibiting work by modern British artists with links to the St Ives area. The Tate also took over management of another museum in the town, the Barbara Hepworth Museum and Sculpture Garden, in 1980.

The Tate St Ives was built between 1988 and 1993 on the site of an old gasworks, it now receives around 210,000 visitors each year. In 2015, it received funding for an expansion, doubling the size of the gallery, and closed in October 2015 for refurbishment. The gallery is expected to re-open in March 2017.

History
In 1980, Tate group started to manage the Barbara Hepworth Museum and Sculpture Garden, dedicated to a St Ives artist closely linked with Henry Moore. The group decided to open a museum in the town, to showcase local artists, especially those already held in their collection.

In 1988, the group purchased a former gas works and commissioned architects Eldred Evans and David Shalev, to design a building for the gallery in a similar style to the gas works. The building included a rotunda at the centre of the gallery, looking over Porthmeor Beach and was completed in 1993. The gallery opened in June 1993, the second of the Tate's regional galleries after Tate Liverpool, receiving more than 120,000 visitors before the end of the year. The gallery receives over 210,000 visitors every year.

In January 2015, the Tate St Ives received £3.9 million to build an extension to the existing gallery, with the intention of doubling the available space. The contract was awarded to BAM Construct UK, who would be adding a1200 m2 extension, with the original architect's involvement. The Tate St Ives was closed in October 2015 for these works and will remain closed until at least March 2017.