John Rothenstein attended Bedales School, studied at Worcester College, Oxford, and became friends with T. E. Lawrence.
The Tate's annual purchase fund could not compete with those of US institutions, so few works of modern foreign art were added to the collection.
[4] According to Richard Cork, one of Rothenstein's errors was failing to purchase Henri Matisse's The Red Studio when it was offered to the Tate Gallery for a few hundred pounds in 1941.
[8] The Tate began hosting temporary exhibitions during this period, organised by the Arts Council of Great Britain, including the major 1960 retrospective of Picasso.
Kitaj's Isaac Babel Riding with Budyonny from the artist's first major show at Marlborough Fine Art in 1963.