Grace Morley

Grace Louise McCann Morley (née Grace Louise McCann; November 3, 1900 – January 8, 1985) was an American art historian, curator and museologist of global influence. She was the first director of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (formerly the San Francisco Museum of Art) and held the position for 23 years starting in 1935. In an interview with Thomas Tibbs, she is credited with being a major force in encouraging young American artists. The government of India awarded her the Padma Bhushan, its third highest civilian award, in 1982.

Early life and education Grace Louise McCann was born in 1900, in Berkeley, California, US. She had health issues that isolated her from other children and led her parents to try different local climate zones, settling in St. Helena, California, in 1909, where she finally started school by age 10. She excelled in school and was an exceptional student. Her high school, St. Helena High School, did not offer French classes, therefore, she decided to teach herself French.

San Francisco In December 1934, she was hired as the curator of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, slated to open in early 1935. Eventually her title changed to director. In her first years at the museum, she organized exhibitions dedicated to Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, and Henri Matisse. By the 1940s and '50s she was holding 100 shows per year, many from the New York MoMA and Peggy Guggenheim's gallery in Manhattan. She also established the first gallery tours for any museum in the West as well as art history courses, a public art library, an art rental gallery, the first film program at an American museum—"Art in Cinema"—, and the television series Art in Your Life.

She was second vice-president, American Federation of Arts, 1939; counsellor for arts at the Bureau of Inter-American Affairs, 1941; a member of the Committee of the Fine Arts Buildings of the Golden Gate International Exposition in San Francisco, and director of Pacific House 1940, a member of the Committee of Experts on the Arts, State Department, 1940–1945.

Between 1946 and 1949, she took leave from the San Francisco Museum of Art, and became consultant for museums at UNESCO Preparatory Commission in Germany, and then as the head of its Museums Division as a consultant with French, American, and British authorities.

However, in 1958, she decided to leave San Francisco along with her ties to the museum due to disagreements with the board of directors. "After being forced to leave S.F. in 1958, she cut off ties with most of her friends and colleagues in the Bay Area, which is one reason her memory has been somewhat buried", Morley scholar Kristy Phillips wrote in a 2006 email on ArtsJournal.com. "She felt betrayed here by the museum and its trustees and at one point declared that she wanted to forget S.F. completely."

Time magazine wrote about her in her twentieth year with the museum, and again on her resignation in 1958. Her resignation was also published in the San Francisco Examiner.

New Delhi In 1959, she served as the assistant director of the Guggenheim Museum before she decided to move to India. In India, under the supervision of Prime Minister Jawawarlal Nehru she opened the country's first major art museum.

Personal life and death In June 1933, she married S. Griswold Morley (1878–1970), a professor of Spanish and Portuguese at UC Berkeley. The marriage did not last long (it became clear that she was a lesbian), but it positioned her when the San Francisco Museum of Art board was looking for a curator.

For the last twenty years of her life, she shared an apartment with a retired Indian Air Force officer and his wife, who became her Indian family, and it was there she died at the age of 84. They believe she had converted to Buddhism at some point in time. At the time of her death Morley's body was cremated in the Indian tradition, and her ashes immersed in a holy river.

Honors and awards Morley received honorary doctorates from Mills College, Smith College and California College of Arts and Crafts, and she was named a chevalier of the French Legion of Honour.

Memorials Research fellowships in her honor are awarded by ICOM India Trust each year. The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art has established the Grace McCann Morley Legacy Society for donors who provide for the museum in their estate plans.

In India, the National Museum Institute of the History of Art, Conservation and Museology holds an annual Dr. Grace Morley Memorial Seminar.

Visual artist Andrea Geyer produced an exhibition and performance devoted to Morley's legacy at SFMOMA in 2017.

Berit Potter, assistant professor of art history/museum and gallery practices at California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt, wrote a book about Morley's impact on the development of modern art in California and role as an early advocate for global perspectives in the study of contemporary art called, Widely Curious: Grace McCann Morley and the Origins of Global Contemporary Art.