In an interview with Thomas Tibbs, she is credited with being a major force in encouraging young American artists.
[1] In late 1934 she was hired as the curator of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, slated to open in early 1935.
She authored a number of articles on contemporary art, and on Latin American civilizations, and was the subject of a book edited by Dipa Chaudhuri.
She had health issues that isolated her from other children and led her parents to try different Bay Area climate zones, settling in St. Helena, California, in 1909, where she finally started school.
[4] She also developed an early interest in art history, but when she studied at the University of California, Berkeley, there were virtually no classes in the subject, so she majored in French and Greek.
The marriage did not last long (it became clear that she was a lesbian), but it positioned her in the Bay Area when the San Francisco Museum of Art board was looking for a curator.
Due to her fame and travels to Brazil, Chile, and Greece, the San Francisco Museum of Art became very well known across the world.
in 1958, she cut off ties with most of her friends and colleagues in the Bay Area, which is one reason her memory has been somewhat buried", Morley scholar Kristy Phillips wrote in a 2006 email on ArtsJournal.com.
[10] In India, under the supervision of Prime Minister Jawawarlal Nehru she opened the country's first major art museum.
[16] In India, the National Museum Institute holds an annual Dr Grace Morley Memorial Seminar.