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Frances Morris

Title
Honorary Fellow
Person Type
Honorary
Frances Morris

Biography

Honorary fellow

As Director of the Tate Modern and one of the most respected voice in the arts, Frances Morris has used her influence to fight for greater representation of female artists throughout her impressive career.

Born in 1959, Frances Morris grew up in South East London where she quickly developed a love for art and museums. A bright student, she earned a scholarship to Cambridge University to study History of Art, where she excelled, returning to London upon graduation to take up a place on the History of Art MA course at the Courtauld Institute of Art.

A year in Paris followed, along with a brief stint working for a television production company, before Frances began her curatorial career at Bristol’s Arnolfini Gallery in the 1980s. She joined Tate Gallery in 1987 as a curator, during which time she curated Paris Post War: Art and Existentialism in 1993 and Rites of Passage in 1995.

She became Head of Displays at Tate Modern when it opened in 2000, and has played a critical role in its success, working as Director of Collection, International Art from 2006 until April 2016, when she was appointed as Director, Tate Modern.

During her career she has successfully fought for greater representation of female artists and staged several groundbreaking exhibitions, including major retrospectives of Louise Bourgeois in 2007, Yayoi Kusama in 2012 and Agnes Martin in 2015.