‘Culture’s still a low priority’

For a hundred years or so, the director of the Tate Gallery has normally been a major figure in the art world. Sir Norman Reid, director in a dynamic period between 1964 and 1979, increased the Tate’s exhibition space and acquired, for example, an important group of paintings by Mark Rothko. Sir Alan Bowness (1980–8) made many significant additions to the collection. He helped father both Tate Liverpool (a precursor of Tate St Ives) and the Clore Gallery at Millbank. He also initiated the Turner Prize.

A comparatively minor figure was the bibulous bohemian J.B. Manson, theoretically responsible between 1930 and 1938. According to his immediate successor, Sir John Rothenstein (1938–64), Manson felt the need to augment his meagre salary by dealing from the Tate’s basement in pictures known to the staff as ‘Director’s stock’. Autres temps, autres moeurs.

The career of Sir Nicholas Serota, director since 1988, provides a striking contrast to the career of this particular predecessor.