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]
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