“We have so much to gain by working together, moving from a set of values grounded in economics to values that speak of lived experience.” Frances Morris
Frances has been a Tate curator since 1988 and was appointed the Tate Modern’s first female Director in 2016. In the four years she has been Director, she has been credited with changing how audiences respond to art of the last century. Frances’ first act as Director of the Tate Modern was the non-chronological hanging of the galleries permanent collection, a format that remains to this day. Her drive to diversify the 20th century canon has also shone light on three female artists - Bourgeois, Kusama and Martin - now considered giants of modern art, as well as brought renewed attention to non-Western traditions.
More recently, Frances has taken charge of shaping the future of the new Switch House extension which opened in late 2017. The extra space has given Frances the opportunity not only to continue re-examining the canon from a more diverse perspective, but also to challenge the primacy of painting; with large swathes of the building dedicated to sculpture and performance. Her recent efforts have seen the Tate Modern surpass the British Museum as the most popular tourist attraction in the UK, attracting 5.82 million visitors annually.
“A brilliant and imaginative curator...fiercely intelligent and very generous with it" Sir Nicholas Serota