Dorothy Morland

Dorothy Morland (1906-1999)^[1] was the director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) from 1952 to 1968, its first female director.^[2] Her biographer Anna Massey contends that Morland was "the protector and advocate of the Independent Group (art movement), which met at the ICA from 1952-5",^[3] and that if the Independent Group are considered the "Fathers of Pop" then she could be considered the "Mother of Pop";^[4] her obituary in the Guardian referred to her as "'guardian angel' to the pop art movement".^[1] During her tenure she also gave early shows to Max Ernst, Jackson Pollock and Henri Cartier-Bresson.^[5]

Born in Hanwell, Middlesex, Morland studied at the Royal College of Music.^[1] Soon after, she contracted tuberculosis; she went to Switzerland to recover, where she met the doctor Andrew Morland, whom she married in 1928.^[6] After the Second World War, she met Peter Gregory, and became involved with the ICA, which Gregory had founded. In 1951 she began to assist with the organisation's administration.^[1]

After leaving the ICA she worked on assembling and securing the organisation’s archives,^[7] now stored in the archive of Tate Britain as the "Dorothy Morland Collection".^[8]