Director Profile: Elizabeth Ann McGregor OBE
In March 2021 Elizabeth McGregor announced her retirement from her position as Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) in October. McGregor has been the Director of the MCA since 1999, moving to Sydney from her job as the director of Birmingham’s Icon Gallery.
During her 22 years at the helm, she has grown the MCA into one of the visited contemporary public art galleries in the world. When she took over the position, the MCA had only been open for eight years but was also on the brink of bankruptcy. In 2019 it topped the world’s most visited museum in its category with more than 1 million visitors. The other museums in the category included The Serpentine Gallery in London, the Ullens Center in Beijing, the MCA in Chicago and MoCA in Los Angeles. Last year the MCA had a five-fold increase in donations, although it did post a deficit due to the Covid induced prolonged closure.
Photograph: Ryan Pierse/Getty Images
As Director, McGregor implemented free admission, put a spotlight on Indigenous Art and managed a major redevelopment. From 2016 - 2019 she was President of the International Council of Museums of Modern and Contemporary Art (CIMAM). McGregor has given the museum a regular international exhibition program and also forged a long-lasting partnership with the Tate Modern. In 2016 the Tate and MCA co-acquired 15 works by Australian artists.
In 2017 Vogue Australia’s Sophie Tedmanson interviewed McGregor about the state of the arts. McGregor said about women in the arts as “generally more collaborative. We try harder. We may not be any better at it but we certainly are conscious of it because you are so aware of this thing where you get called aggressive when you’re being forthright.” In 2008 she was awarded the Veuve Clicquot Business Woman Award and the Australian Business Arts Foundation Dame Elisabeth Murdoch Arts Business Leadership Award. In 2011 she received an OBE in the Queen’s birthday honour list.
McGregor’s swansong exhibition was a retrospective on Lindy Lee (Lindy Lee: Moon in a Dew Drop) where McGregor was also the curator, and proved to be a successful and popular exhibition for the MCA. In the press conference announcing her retirement, she announced that she was planning a move back to her home country, Scotland, and spend time with her mum.
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