Modern master: how Nick Serota's Tate skyrocketed to success

He’s created the most popular modern art museum in the world, but that’s just one corner of a sprawling empire. As Tate’s driven director steps down after 30 years, we reveal how he transformed a dusty pile by the Thames into an £86m global forceWhen Nicholas Serota, aged 42, took up the post of director of the Tate Gallery in September 1988, his domain was a patch of land on the north bank of the Thames, and a newly opened outpost on Albert Dock, Liverpool. As he readies