DIRECTOR of the Tate Modern in London,Vicente Todolí, has given up his position after seven years.

The Valencia-born gallery manager will leave in the summer, when his position will be advertised.

He told reporters that he felt he needed 'a break', but would continue to work with the Tate as an external consultant.

“At the beginning of my career, I worked for seven years in Valencia, then another seven in Oporto (Portugal).

“I always intended to take a break from it at that point, but the chance to work in London was so irresistible that I went there straight from Portugal in 2003,” Todolí explains.

“Now I feel that the moment really has come to take a break, but I still want to work for the Tate in its future projects including the major exhibition in 2011 which will be announced this autumn.”

The director of the Tate Group, Nicholas Serota, commented on the 'enormous contribution to the Tate Modern's success' that the Valencian art historian's presence there had made.

He helped increase the private collection and organised a series of Early Modernism exhibitions which Serota said 'redefined' that period in art history.

Among these exhibitions were Kandinsky in 2005; Albers and Moholy-Nagy ('From Bauhaus to the New World') in 2006; Dalí and the cinema in 2007; Duchamp, Man Ray and Picabia in 2008; Rodchenko and Popova last year, and the current Van Doesburg ('International avant-garde: Building a new world').

Next year will mark the tenth anniversary of the Tate Modern and will be a tribute to Todolí's success.

And the following year, an exhibition held to mark the 2012 London Olympics will also bear his stamp.

Todolí was born in Palmera (Valencia province) in 1958 and studied Art History at Valencia University, before carrying out his post-graduate studies in art history at Yale University (USA) between 1981 and 1982 on a Fulbright scholarship.

He has worked at New York's Whitney Museum, the IVAM in Valencia, and the Serralves Contemporary Art Museum in Oporto, as well as working alongside the ICA in Amsterdam and the Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid.

London's Tate Modern is said to be the world's most popular modern art museum and in 2008 alone saw 5.2 million visitors pass through its doors.