Caragh Thuring painting among four works bought by the Tate from the Frieze Art Fair

One of the gallery’s curators said they had watched the up-and-coming British artist for some time before buying this work titled Arthur Kennedy, which was painted this year.

A painting by up-and-coming British artist Caragh Thuring was among the four works snapped up by the Tate from the Frieze Art Fair, which opens officially today.

One of the gallery’s curators said they had watched Ms Thuring for some time before buying this work titled Arthur Kennedy, which was painted this year.

Tanya Barson, a curator at the Tate said: “She is a young artist, towards the beginning of her career, but the gallery has looked at her for a while. This was the right piece to add to the collection.”

The artist, who was born in Belgium and moved to Britain with her family at the age of one, said: “It’s very exciting; it’s an honour to be included in a collection with that history,” adding: “It’s nice to be part of a lineage.” She said work by David Hockney, Lucian Freud and George Stubbs were among her favourites in the Tate’s collection.  

Ms Thuring painted the five-by-seven foot canvas while out in New York on a “self-imposed residency. It was the view outside my window, which is not something I tend to do.”

Martine D’Anglejan, a partner in the Thomas Dane Gallery, which shows her work, said Ms Thuring was influenced by historical paintings including a series referencing Le Dejeuner sur l’Erbe by Edouard Manet. “She is a very vigorous painter, her works are strong and she is extremely honest in her approach.”

The Tate buys from Frieze every year with funds from Outset, which was founded in 2003 as a philanthropic organisation to support new art. This year’s pot of £150,000 was the largest so far. A total of 86 works by 57 artists have been collected since Outset, which raises private funding from its supporters and trustees, was created.

This year the Tate also bought a work from 1963 by Hideko Fukushima, an artist who was a founder member of the Experimental Workshop in Japan in the 1950s, and South African artist Nicholas Hlobo.

Epsilon Group II, a 1977 oil painting by Jack Whitten, was also among the four acquisitions. Ms Barson from the Tate said: “Whitten was part of a group adopting abstract language in the late ‘60s. He is part of a school of African-American artists, and this piece is quite rare.”

Nicholas Serota, Director, Tate said: “. This year, the purchases range from rediscoveries such as Fukushima and Whitten, to an artist showing in the first gallery from Africa to be present at the Fair and a younger British painter.”