Portrait of Sir John Rothenstein C.B.E. 1938 by Sir William Rothenstein 1872–1945. Presented by Lady Dynevor through the Friends of the Tate Gallery 1974.
Sir John Knewstub Maurice RothensteinCBE (11 July 1901 – 27 February 1992) was a British arts administrator andart historian.
After serving as Director ofLeeds City Art Gallery, he was appointed Director ofSheffield City Art Galleries (1933–38) where he oversaw the establishment and opening of theGraves Art Gallery. From 1938–64 Rothenstein was Director of theTate Gallery in London.[2] His father had been a trustee of the Tate up until a few years before and there were hints of nepotism in the appointment, especially as his father had telephoned the Chairman of the trustees in advance of Rothenstein's job interview.[3]
Rothenstein's directorship — the longest to date — was one of the most successful. The Tate's annual purchase fund could not compete with those ofUS institutions, so few works of modern foreign art were added to the collection. However, he wrote, "Picasso is a Proteus, the prodigiously gifted master of all styles and media".[4]
According toRichard Cork, one of Rothenstein's errors was failing to purchaseHenri Matisse'sThe Red Studio when it was offered to the Tate Gallery for a few hundred pounds in 1941.[5]
Art historianDouglas Cooper began anopen campaign to have Rothenstein dismissed by the trustees, which led to an incident in which Rothenstein punched Cooper in the face in 1954, knocking his glasses off.[5][6][7][3]
Rothenstein documented the lives of all the major (and many still overlooked) British artists in hisModern English Painters, which has earned him the title of 'The Vasari of British Art' (like Vasari's pioneeringLives, it was revised and reprinted during the author's lifetime).[8]
The Tate began hosting temporary exhibitions during this period, organised by theArts Council of Great Britain, including the major 1960 retrospective of Picasso. Rothenstein acquired such contemporary works asR.B. Kitaj'sIsaac Babel Riding with Budyonny from the artist's first major show at Marlborough Fine Art in 1963.[9]In 1964 he retired from the Tate to Oxfordshire where he wrote three volumes of autobiography.[3]
An annual lecture named in his honour now takes place at Tate Britain.[10]
^abcShenton, Caroline (2021).National Treasures: Saving the Nation’s Art in World War II (Hardback). London: John Murray. pp. 69–73,79–80,151–152, 257.ISBN978-1-529-38743-8.
^Rothenstein, John,The Moderns and their World (introduction), Phoenix House, London 1957, p. 16.
^abJohn Richardson,The Sorcerer's Apprentice: Picasso, Provence, and Douglas Cooper. University of Chicago Press, 1999;ISBN978-0-226-71245-1, pp. 158-64.
