London’s Tate was busy during Frieze’s first VIP day on Wednesday after acquiring three new works by female artists for its collection.
They are Tanzanian, London-based artist Lubna Chowdhary’s ceramic and wooden sculpture titled Assembly (2025), bought from Jhaveri Contemporary gallery. A conté, charcoal, and pastel on paper titled End of Affair II (2025) by British artist Barabra Walker from Victoria Miro. And Untitled (Venus Mid Heaven) (1920-30), ink on calco, by the late British artist Madge Gill, which was sold by The Gallery of Everything at Frieze Masters.
The works were acquired through the Frieze Tate Fund, which totals £150,000 made available by Endeavor, the fair’s previous owner. (Ariel Emanuel, via his newly formed company now called Mari, finalized the acquisition of Frieze, the company that includes its namesake publication, seven art fairs around the world, and two exhibition spaces, earlier this month.) It’s the tenth year in a row that the fund has enabled Tate to buy artworks at the fair.
Since Frieze London first launched in 2003, Tate has acquired more than 170 works by over 100 artists at the fair. “These works have since been seen by millions of visitors in Tate’s four galleries and have been shared with museums and galleries across the UK and beyond,” the museum said in a statement.
“We are delighted that the Frieze Tate Fund has continued this year thanks to generous philanthropic support, allowing us to enrich Tate’s collection with these outstanding works,” Maria Balshaw, Tate’s director, said. “I know they will make fantastic additions to our galleries and I look forward to being able to share them with the public in the years to come.”
This year’s Frieze Tate Fund selection panel was spearheaded by Gregor Muir (director of Tate’s collection), alongside Dominique Heyse-Moore (a senior curator at Contemporary British Art), Nicoletta Lambertucci (a curator at Modern and Contemporary British Art), and Valentine Umansky (a curator at International Art).
At last year’s fair, Tate acquired works by Naminapu Maymuru-White, Mohammed Z. Rahman, and Eva Švankmajerová.
