Frances Morris (born January 1959) is the director of

Tate Modern Tate Modern is an art gallery located in London. It houses the United Kingdom's national collection of international modern and contemporary art, and forms part of the Tate group together with Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. It is ...

art gallery in London. She succeeded

Chris Dercon Chris Dercon (born 1958) is a Belgian art historian, curator, and museum director born in Lier in Belgium. As a museum director, Dercon has worked and published extensively on the future of museums, working with renowned architects Rem Koolhaas, ...

in January 2016.

Education

Frances Morris was born in London. She attended a state school,

Haberdashers' Aske's School for Girls Haberdashers' Girls' School is an independent day school in Elstree, Hertfordshire. It is often referred to as "Habs" (or "Habs Girls" to distinguish it from the neighbouring Haberdashers' Boys' School). The school was founded in 1875 by the Wo ...

, at the time a direct grant grammar, in New Cross, London. At University she studied history of art, receiving a bachelor's degree from the

University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

and a master's degree from the

Courtauld Institute of Art The Courtauld Institute of Art (), commonly referred to as The Courtauld, is a self-governing college of the University of London specialising in the study of the history of art and conservation. It is among the most prestigious specialist coll ...

. Her master's thesis deals with French painter

Jean Hélion Jean Hélion (April 21, 1904October 27, 1987) was a French painter whose abstract work of the 1930s established him as a leading modernist. His midcareer rejection of abstraction was followed by nearly five decades as a figurative painter. He w ...

Career

After working at the Arnolfini Gallery in Bristol, she joined the

Tate Gallery Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...

as a curator in the Modern Collection in 1987, became Head of Displays at

when it opened in 2000, and Director of Collections (International Art) in 2006. In January 2016, she was appointed director of the Tate Modern. As Director, Morris oversees one of the world's most popular art museums, with an attendance of over 5.8 million visitors annually; she is also credited with elevating Tate Modern’s profile globally. She is the gallery's first British and first woman director. Morris, along with her colleague

Iwona Blazwick Iwona Maria Blazwick OBE (born 14 October 1955) is a British art critic and lecturer, and has been Director of the Whitechapel Art Gallery in London since 2001. She discovered Damien Hirst and staged his first solo show at a public London art ...

, was responsible with the initial presentation in 2000 of the Tate Modern's opening collection displays, organised thematically and in a non-chronological manner with mixing of contemporary artworks with those of Monet, Matisse, and Picasso. While the non-chronological style was controversial with art critics, it is now regularly used world-wide by museums and galleries; Tate Modern continues to display its collection in this way. In her career, Morris has particularly focused on the work of women artists, and worked to extend the canon of art history to include work from outside Europe; since 2006 she has spearheaded Tate's global acquisitions strategy. She has curated several large-scale international collaborative exhibitions including, most recently, major retrospectives for Louise Bourgeois in 2007, Yayoi Kusama in 2012, Agnes Martin in 2015, and Alberto Giacometti in 2017. Morris is a board member of

Fruitmarket Gallery The Fruitmarket Gallery is a contemporary art gallery in Edinburgh, Scotland. Since its opening in 1974, the gallery has become part of the Scottish contemporary art scene. After a period of closure to undergo a significant renovation, the ga ...

, Edinburgh and the Conseil International des Musees d'Art Moderne (CIMAM) and a member of the Advisory Board of the Mori Art Museum, Tokyo]. In March 2018 she was appointed Distinguished Professor of Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts. Morris is an Honorary Fellow of King's College, Cambridge, and holds Honorary Doctorates from the Universities of Essex, Edinburgh and York, from the Royal College of Art London and UAL. She has published widely, and lectures and broadcasts to a broad variety of audiences across the UK and around the world.

Personal life

Morris is married to Martin Caiger-Smith, Head of the MA Curating the Art Museum programme at the

. They have three children.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Morris, Frances 1959 births Living people British curators Alumni of the University of Cambridge Alumni of the Courtauld Institute of Art Directors of museums in the United Kingdom Tate Modern Directors Women museum directors