compiled by Eimear McKeith

Tate seeks 'indecent' artwork / and to lose other works (January 12, 2004)

Tate eyes Shah's Bacon

We reported a short while back - click here - on a work at London's Tate Britain that was causing a few problems for Islamic visitors. In an odd echo of that minor affair, Tehran has a painting which it considers too indecent to show, but which the Tate would like to borrow. The painting in question is one of reluctant-Dubliner Francis Bacon's allegedly most significant works, a triptych entitled Two figures lying on a bed with attendants. It has been in storage for almost 25 years.

Bought by the Shah of Iran, it was intended to be displayed in his wife's museum in Tehran, but because of the 1979 Iranian revolution, the painting was put in storage - it was felt by authorities to be unacceptable to Moslem eyes.

A spokesperson for the Tate said: "We have requested the loan of the work. But we have yet to receive confirmation. The museum director is very keen to show the work. It is a major work by Francis Bacon and it has not been shown for more than two decades. It is such a key painting and it should be shown at the home of British art."

The director of the Tate Britain, Stephen Deuchar, visited the modern art museum in Tehran two years ago and had the opportunity to view the painting then. Of the plans to borrow the work, he said (somewhat underwhelmingly), "I thought it would be rather great to see it in this country in the context of some other Bacons."

Source of information The BBC. Click here to read more

Buying and selling at the Tate

If the Tate is looking to hang one artist from Ireland, it is apparently thinking of exiling another. Works by Louis Le Brocquy may be among those it will be auctioning off in order to "improve their collections."

Sir Nicholas Serota, a director of the Tate, said: "Sometimes, we find artists are not represented by the best examples of their work, or perhaps we have two or three pieces which we are unlikely to show together because they are close in type."

The institution has said that it would only consider selling works by living artists and only with their pemission. Sir Nicholas stated: "There would be no question of selling a Turner to buy a Hirst".

There is no doubt, however, that whatever paintings are chosen to be bought and sold, any such decision will be the subject of much controversy.

Source of information The BBC. Click here to read more.

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