Jessica Morgan appointed Director of Tate

The Chairman and Trustees of Tate have announced that leading British curator Jessica Morgan, currently Director of Dia Art Foundation, has been appointed Director of Tate. The appointment was approved by the outgoing Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer MP.

Morgan will become the tenth Director in Tate’s history, taking up the role on 1 January 2027. She succeeds Maria Balshaw CBE, while Karin Hindsbo, Deputy Director of Tate and Director of Tate Modern, will continue to serve as Interim Director until Morgan’s arrival.

Jessica Morgan has been Director of Dia Art Foundation since 2015. Based in New York, Dia is a multi-sited organisation that commissions and organises artist projects and exhibitions, cares for a growing collection of modern and contemporary art, and stewards several major site-specific installations across the USA and Germany.

Under Morgan’s leadership, Dia has become a more expansive and dynamic institution, increasing free admission, undertaking capital projects across its sites and bringing a broader range of artists and artworks into its collection and exhibition programme.

Morgan previously worked at Tate Modern as The Daskalopoulos Curator, International Art, from 2010 to 2014, having served as Curator at Tate from 2002 to 2010. During her time at Tate, she curated numerous major exhibitions and organised new commissions for the Turbine Hall, while playing a key role in the growth of Tate’s international collection.

Before joining Tate, Morgan served as Chief Curator at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, and as a curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago.

Morgan recently curated a retrospective of Lee Ufan at SMAC, Venice, in 2026, and the acclaimed group exhibition Minimal at the Bourse de Commerce in Paris in 2025–26. She also served as Artistic Director of the 10th Gwangju Biennale in 2014.

She sits on several international advisory boards, including the Sounding Board for Haus der Kunst in Munich; the Advisory Committee for the Collection at MACBA in Barcelona; the Advisory Committee for Khao Yai Foundation in Thailand; and the Advisory Board for the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre in Mumbai.

Morgan holds an MA in Art History from the Courtauld Institute of Art and a BA and MA in Art History from the University of Cambridge. She was a Mellon Fellow at the Yale Center for British Art and a Contemporary Art Curatorial Fellow at the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University.

Morgan joins Tate as Tate Liverpool prepares to reopen in 2027 following a major transformation. Tate currently welcomes millions of visitors each year across Tate Modern, Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. The institution also lends thousands of artworks to museums and galleries throughout the UK and internationally.

Jessica Morgan. Photo by Gabriela Herman