Tate Modern was opened in 2000 and in its first year was the most popular museum in the world, with more than 5,000,000 visitors! A true success for the Tate's director Sir Nicholas Serota. Tate Modern belongs to Tate, a major network of museums in England.

The original Tate Gallery is now renamed Tate Britain. Its official name was National Gallery of British Art and it was situated on Millbank, Pimlico, London. In the 1820s Sir John Leicester, Baron de Tabley first proposed the idea of creating a National Gallery of British Art. For many years the South Kensington Museum (later Victoria & Albert Museum) was known as the National Gallery of Art at the same time as the Tate Gallery was.

The National Gallery of British Art was later renamed after Henry Tate, a sugar magnate and collector of Victorian academic art. Tate offered to fund the building to house British Art and gifted the gallery his wonderful private collection.