Tate St Ives

Tate St Ives is a gallery that could only exist where it is — a luminous, white-walled space perched above Porthmeor Beach in Cornwall, where the quality of light that drew artists like Barbara Hepworth, Ben Nicholson, and Patrick Heron to St Ives pours through the windows and becomes part of the art. The building itself, designed by Evans & Shalev and extended in 2017, is a masterpiece of contextual architecture. The collection celebrates the St Ives School and the colony of modernist artists who worked here from the 1920s onwards. Rotating displays from the Tate collection are complemented by ambitious temporary exhibitions. The gallery's relationship to the landscape — the Atlantic visible from the galleries, the light changing with the weather — makes seeing art here a fundamentally different experience from a London gallery. Combine with a visit to the Barbara Hepworth Museum and Sculpture Garden (included in the ticket), a five-minute walk away. The beaches of St Ives are spectacular — Porthmeor directly below the gallery is a world-class surf beach. The town itself, with its narrow lanes, independent galleries, and fishing harbour, is one of the most beautiful in Cornwall.