Twenty Years of Grace

The San Francisco Museum of Art was celebrating its 20th anniversary last week, marking a milestone as the country's second oldest museum (after Manhattan's) devoted solely to modern art. It was also paying warm tribute to the museum's scholarly director, Dr. Grace L. McCann Morley, 54. A woman who prefers tailored suits, sensible shoes, and wears her hair straight back in a bun, Director Morley, despite her retiring ways, has proved herself a dynamo in action. Her efforts have helped turn San Francisco into one of the nation's most enthusiastic strongholds of modern art.

The Virtues of Poverty. When Grace Morley first opened the museum on the fourth floor of San Francisco's War Memorial Building in 1935, she had one assistant, 98 prints and a handful of oils. She decided to make a virtue of the museum's poverty. Treating the museum primarily as an exhibition center, she filled the empty walls with more than 100 shows a year, kept up the busy pace until museumgoers were deluged with modern art. When a wave of enthusiasm for Mexican painting started after Diego Rivera painted his murals for the San Francisco Stock Exchange, Director Morley obtained Rivera's preliminary designs for the murals to start what is today an outstanding U.S. collection of modern Mexican and South American painting.

Today membership in the museum is a social must. The museum stays open until 10 p.m., keeps its members happy with a calendar chockablock with concerts, poetry readings, art classes and a movie series. Membership has jumped from 800 members in 1938 to more than 3,500 today. The museum's annual budget has increased from $50,000 to $118,000. Says an admiring rival San Francisco director: "Grace Morley has the most enthusiastic support from the community of any museum director I have ever heard of. On pauper's rations she has made the museum outstanding."

Rooms with a View. To give San Franciscans further proof of the museum's progress. Director Morley had on display last week the pick of its 4,000 works, most of them donated by enthusiastic San Francisco collectors. Included in the current anniversary show are the outstanding works from the museum's San Francisco Bay area annuals, which have given a boost to such artists as Dong Kingman and the late Matthew Barnes, a survey of Latin American art, important works by Braque, Klee, Matisse and Franz Marc. For the gala opening, the museum unveiled nine handsome new donations to the museum, including Georges Rouault's Sea of Galilee, and bronzes by Henry Moore, Braque and Matisse.

The success of the San Francisco Museum has made Grace Morley an important figure in the museum world. Currently she is the president of the Association of Art Museum Directors. But Director Morley's overriding concern is to improve the lot of the artists themselves. The museum runs a rental service of contemporary works, promotes modern art with a TV show reaching 50,000 bay area viewers each week. But in trying to make San Franciscans bigger art buyers, Director Morley has run into one unmovable obstacle. "San Franciscans are spoiled by the view." she explains. "If they buy less than people in Cleveland, it is because they need it less. I only own a few pieces myself."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.