Norman Reid (museum Director) - Tate Gallery

Tate Gallery

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 Brâncuşi, 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.

In 1972, the Tate purchased Equivalent VIII, a 1966 work by American sculptor Carl Andre which consisted of a stack of 120 ready-made fire bricks. When a journalist discovered the sculpture listed in the Tate's Biennial Report of 1972–74 the matter was picked up by numerous British newspapers, with the subsequent hostility causing great embarrassment to Reid, who defended the purchase and the Curators who had made it. However, the case dogged Reid for the rest of his period as Director.

Reid also increased the Tate's earlier collections, launching a successful fund-raising drive in 1977 to acquire Haymakers and Reapers by George Stubbs.

The strong personal relationships he forged with artists (he himself had trained as a painter), also led to important works being donated to the Gallery. Mark Rothko's Seagram Mural, and work by Barbara Hepworth (Reid later acted as one of her executors), Ben Nicholson, Naum Gabo and Henry Moore were all gifted to the Tate largely as a result of the personal respect the artists had for Reid. He established the gallery's conservation department, the Exhibitions and Education department, and was involved in founding the Friends of the Tate, the American Friends of the Tate, and the charity Paintings in Hospitals. Reid is widely regarded as the foremost of the Tate's Directors, having developed the gallery into "an international museum of the first rank".