Grace Morley

Dr. Grace Louise McCann Morley (1900–1985) was a 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.

Dr. Morley studied French Literature at UC Berkeley and earned a doctorate degree in Art History from a fellowship with the University of Paris (1923), a D.Litt. doctoral degree from the Sorbonne University of Paris France in Art and Literature (1926), an honorary degree from Mills College (1937), and an honorary "Doctor of Humane Letters" degree from Smith in 1957.

Her first general curating position was at the Cincinnati Museum of Art in Ohio at 1930.

In her first years at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art she organized three shows 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". Time Magazine carried an article in her twentieth year with the museum, and then another article on her resignation.

During these years, she was active in the art world in the US. 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 1946-1949, she took leave from the San Francisco Museum of Art, and became Consultant for Museums at UNESCO Preparatory Commission, and then as the Head of its Museums Division.

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