Norman Reid (museum director)

Sir Norman Robert Reid (27 December 1915 – 17 December 2007) was an arts administrator and painter and was the Director of the Tate Gallery from 1964 to 1979

Norman Reid was born in Dulwich, London, and was the son of a shoemaker. He was educated at Wilson's Grammar School and won a scholarship to the Edinburgh College of Art, where he studied in the late 1930s and was taught by William Gillies. Later, Reid received a degree in English at Edinburgh University. Reid enlisted in 1939 in the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders at the start of Second World War. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the same regiment on 2 August 1941. He transferred to the Royal Artillery on 1 November 1941, and later served in Italy. Reid left the Army in 1946 with the rank of major. In 1941, Reid married Jean Lindsay Bertram, whom he met while they were students at the Edinburgh College of Art.

Reid joined the Tate Gallery in 1946 having heard that it was under-staffed, and became the right-hand man of the then Director, John Rothenstein, becoming deputy director in 1954 and keeper in 1959. He was appointed Director when Rothenstein retired in 1964.

A much needed expansion of the Gallery, the 'North East Quadrant', was built in 1979 during Reid's directorship, vastly increasing the Tate's exhibition space. Reid also strengthened the Collection, especially in the area of early twentieth-century European art, acquiring outstanding works by artists including Pablo Picasso, Giacometti, Henri Matisse, Constantin Brâncuși, Piet Mondrian, and Salvador Dalí. During Reid's Directorship the Tate staged a number of ground-breaking exhibitions, including an early presentation of Gilbert and George's Living Statues.

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