1972 (composition)

Sir Norman Reid (1915-2007) was the Director of the Tate Gallery from 1964-1979. Reid’s close friendships with major artists of the period led to key acquisitions, such as the Seagram Murals by Mark Rothko in the Tate’s collection. He was the first to acknowledge the split in the Tate’s collection by assigning the keeper of Historic British Painting to Lawrence Gowing and the keeper of Modern Art to Ronald Alley, which paved the way to the subsequent formation of Tate Britain and Tate Modern.