Aitken, Charles

Aitken, Charles (1869–1936). British administrator. He was born in York and studied at New College, Oxford University. From 1900 to 1911 he was the first director of the Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, and from 1911 to 1930 he was director of the Tate Gallery, succeeding D. S. MacColl. Sir John Rothenstein writes that Aitken was ‘an ordinary man: his intelligence was relatively pedestrian, his powers of self-expression scarcely adequate’. However, Rothenstein considers that the job ‘brought out qualities that made him a great director: clarity and firmness of purpose, and a burning devotion to the Tate … It was as a selfless co-ordinator of the gifts of others—one of the most precious gifts the director of a museum can possess—that Aitken was at his best.’ Muirhead Bone also had a high opinion of Aitken, referring to him as ‘a genius of a gallery-director, with great originality of vision’. Aitken's taste, however, was old-fashioned, and Kenneth Clark criticizes him and his successor J. B. Manson because they ‘set their faces against all post-impressionist painting, and did their best to prevent such pictures entering the Gallery, even as gifts’.