As Maria Balshaw steps down after nine years, her successor at the gallery needs to forge a fresh financial and cultural path
R
oland Rudd, the chair of Tate, is in a bullish mood when we meet at his offices in the Adelphi Building, which sits on the Thames between the art institution’s two London sites. “Things have never been better,” he says.
It’s a rebuff to any suggestion that the organisation is in flux – and, as if he were expecting the question to arise, Rudd produces a piece of paper from his suit pocket with notes to prove his point. The recent wins, he says, are so numerous that he has written them down so as not to forget any.
At Tate Britain, Turner and Constable drew in 270,000 people, which Rudd insists “is phenomenal”; Lee Miller was “the most popular photography show anywhere in the UK”; and “Tracey” (Tracey Emin, to you and me) has brought in 125,000 paying visitors, “a remarkable number”, over at Tate Modern.
