For Art's Sake

She’s One Of The Most Persuasive, Passionate Proponents Of The Visual Arts Australia’s Ever Known, But Elizabeth Ann Macgregor Obe Has Faced Her Share Of Struggles. We Spoke To The Mca Director About The Standout Moments In Her Extraordinary Career.

- Rachel Sharp

It’s a jewel in Australia’s arts’ crown, a spectacular building with an unbeatable view, and now officially the most visited modern art gallery in the world, with more than a million visitors a year. But when Elizabeth Ann Macgregor was handed the key to Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) exactly 20 years ago, it was more akin to inheriting the Titanic.

Back then, MCA had a seriously dismal public image, even worse financial woes and was on the brink of closing its doors. The fact that Macgregor—affectionately known as Liz Ann to friends and associates—turned the ship around to such spectacular effect is legendary in global art circles. “Someone once asked me what’s the most dangerous thing I’ve tried in my life, thinking I’d say bungee jumping or scuba diving with sharks —which I have done, by the way,” says Scotland-born Macgregor, whose five-page resume full of achievements, accolades, board appointments and charity interests makes for fascinating—if not deeply humbling—reading. “But I think giving up a secure job [as director of the prestigious Ikon Gallery in Birmingham] to travel to the other side of the world to a different country, to an institution that was on the verge of bankruptcy, was scarier.”