ABSTRACT
EL I Z A B E T H E S T E V E - C O L L WA S D I R E C T O R of the Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A) in London from 1987 to 1995. Not only was she the fi rst female director of a national art museum in the United Kingdom, 1 but she presided over perhaps the most controversial period of the institution’s history. She was subject to considerable scrutiny and was often pilloried by associates and the media for introducing policies regarded as philistine and mercenary. However, it might be argued that many of her actions and attitudes that prompted criticism were appropriate and even unavoidable responses to wider political and economic trends. Her tenure posed a challenge to an upper-middle-class and patriarchal hegemony that had prevailed at the V&A for over a century. This was particularly marked in relation to issues of scholarship and research. Although Esteve-Coll was not explicitly attacked for her gender, her mere presence challenged a long-established male dominance and was likely to have been perceived as a threat to the masculinist culture of the museum. Consequently, much of the hostility she encountered might be interpreted as a form of indirect discrimination. In considering these arguments in greater depth, it is useful to situate EsteveColl’s career within the broader contexts of the V&A’s history as well as the socio-political and historical circumstances within which she worked, and to apply feminist analyses of the museum and academic sectors.
