Laurence des Cars (born Laurence Élisabeth de Pérusse des Cars on 13 June 1966) is a French general curator of heritage and art historian, since September 2021 Director of the

Louvre Museum The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...

after having headed the

Musée d'Orsay The Musée d'Orsay ( , , ) ( en, Orsay Museum) is a museum in Paris, France, on the Left Bank of the Seine. It is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, a Beaux-Arts railway station built between 1898 and 1900. The museum holds mainly French art ...

and

Musée de l'Orangerie The Musée de l'Orangerie ( en, Orangery Museum) is an art gallery of impressionist and post-impressionist paintings located in the west corner of the Tuileries Garden next to the Place de la Concorde in Paris. The museum is most famous as the pe ...

Biography

Laurence des Cars was born in Antony,

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

. She is the daughter of the journalist and writer and granddaughter of the novelist

Guy des Cars Guy Augustin Marie Jean de la Pérusse des Cars (6 May 1911 – 21 December 1993) was a best-selling French author of popular novels. Personal life Born in Paris on 6 May 1911, des Cars was from an aristocratic family. He was the second son of ...

(himself the second son of François de Pérusse des Cars, 5th Duc des Cars). She studied

art history Art history is the study of aesthetic objects and visual expression in historical and stylistic context. Traditionally, the discipline of art history emphasized painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture, ceramics and decorative arts; yet today ...

Paris-Sorbonne University Paris-Sorbonne University (also known as Paris IV; french: Université Paris-Sorbonne, Paris IV) was a public research university in Paris, France, active from 1971 to 2017. It was the main inheritor of the Faculty of Humanities of the Universit ...

and

École du Louvre The École du Louvre is an institution of higher education and grande école located in the Aile de Flore of the Louvre Palace in Paris, France. It is dedicated to the study of archaeology, art history, anthropology and epigraphy. Admission is ...

, then joined the

Institut national du patrimoine French national institute of cultural heritage, called Institut national du patrimoine (Inp), is the only academy in France in charge of the training of both curators and conservators. It belongs to French Ministry of Culture and is organized in ...

and took her first position as curator at the Musée d'Orsay in 1994. She is a specialist on the art of the nineteenth century and early twentieth century. As a teacher at École du Louvre, she organised many exhibitions for various museums, such as 'L'Origine du monde, autour d'un chef-d'œuvre de

Courbet Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet ( , , ; 10 June 1819 – 31 December 1877) was a French painter who led the Realism movement in 19th-century French painting. Committed to painting only what he could see, he rejected academic convention and t ...

' (

, 1996); '

Jean-Paul Laurens Jean-Paul Laurens (; 28 March 1838 – 23 March 1921) was a French painter and sculptor, and one of the last major exponents of the French Academic style. Biography Laurens was born in Fourquevaux and was a pupil of Léon Cogniet and Alexand ...

, peintre d'histoire' (Musée d'Orsay,

Musée des Augustins The Musée des Augustins de Toulouse is a fine arts museum in Toulouse, France which conserves a collection of sculpture and paintings from the Middle Ages to the early 20th century. The paintings are from throughout France, the sculptures represe ...

, 1997–1998); '

Edward Burne-Jones Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, 1st Baronet, (; 28 August, 183317 June, 1898) was a British painter and designer associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood which included Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Millais, Ford Madox Brown and Holman Hun ...

' (

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

, Birmingham Museum, Musée d'Orsay, 1998–1999); 'Courbet et la Commune' (Musée d'Orsay, 2000); '

Thomas Eakins Thomas Cowperthwait Eakins (; July 25, 1844 – June 25, 1916) was an American realist painter, photographer, sculptor, and fine arts educator. He is widely acknowledged to be one of the most important American artists. For the length ...

, un réaliste américain' (

Philadelphia Museum of Art The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMoA) is an art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at the northwest end of the Benjamin Fr ...

, Musée d'Orsay, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2001–2002); '

Édouard Vuillard Jean-Édouard Vuillard (; 11 November 186821 June 1940) was a French painter, decorative artist and printmaker. From 1891 through 1900, he was a prominent member of the Nabis, making paintings which assembled areas of pure color, and interior s ...

' (

National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art, and its attached Sculpture Garden, is a national art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of char ...

Montreal Museum of Fine Arts The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA; french: Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal, MBAM) is an art museum in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is the largest art museum in Canada by gallery space. The museum is located on the historic Golden Square ...

Galeries nationales du Grand Palais The galeries nationales du Grand Palais (Grand Palais National Galleries) are museum spaces located in the Grand Palais in the 8th arrondissement of Paris. They serve as home to major art exhibits and cultural events programmed by the Réunion ...

Royal Academy of Arts The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its purpo ...

, 2003–2004); '

Gustave Courbet Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet ( , , ; 10 June 1819 – 31 December 1877) was a French painter who led the Realism movement in 19th-century French painting. Committed to painting only what he could see, he rejected academic convention and t ...

' (Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, The Metropolitan Museum of Art,

Musée Fabre The Musée Fabre is a museum in the southern French city of Montpellier, capital of the Hérault ''département''. The museum was founded by François-Xavier Fabre, a Montpellier painter, in 1825. Beginning in 2003, the museum underwent a 61.2 m ...

, 2007–2008); '

Jean-Léon Gérôme Jean-Léon Gérôme (11 May 1824 – 10 January 1904) was a French painter and sculptor in the style now known as academicism. His paintings were so widely reproduced that he was "arguably the world's most famous living artist by 1880." The ran ...

' (

Getty Museum The J. Paul Getty Museum, commonly referred to as the Getty, is an art museum in Los Angeles, California housed on two campuses: the Getty Center and Getty Villa. The Getty Center is located in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles and fe ...

, Musée d'Orsay,

Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum The Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum (in Spanish, the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza (), named after its founder), or simply the Thyssen, is an art museum in Madrid, Spain, located near the Prado Museum on one of the city's main boulevards. I ...

, 2010–2011); ' Louvre Abou Dhabi, Naissance d'un musée' (Manarat Al Saadiyat Museum,

Musée du Louvre The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...

, 2013–2014); 'Attaquer le soleil : Hommage au

marquis de Sade Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade (; 2 June 1740 – 2 December 1814), was a French nobleman, revolutionary politician, philosopher and writer famous for his literary depictions of a libertine sexuality as well as numerous accusat ...

' (Musée d'Orsay, 2014–2015); '

Apollinaire Guillaume Apollinaire) of the Wąż coat of arms. (; 26 August 1880 – 9 November 1918) was a French poet, playwright, short story writer, novelist, and art critic of Polish descent. Apollinaire is considered one of the foremost poets of the ...

, le regard du poète' (

, 2016); 'La peinture américaine des années 1930' (Musée de l'Orangerie, 2016–2017). She is the author of numerous illustrated essays, including a book on

Pre-Raphaelites The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (later known as the Pre-Raphaelites) was a group of English painters, poets, and art critics, founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Michael Rossetti, James ...

for the

collection Collection or Collections may refer to: * Cash collection, the function of an accounts receivable department * Collection (church), money donated by the congregation during a church service * Collection agency, agency to collect cash * Collectio ...

Découvertes Gallimard (, ; in United Kingdom: ''New Horizons'', in United States: ''Abrams Discoveries'') is an editorial collection of illustrated monographic books published by the Éditions Gallimard in pocket format. The books are concise introductions to pa ...

', ''Les Préraphaélites : Un modernisme à l'anglaise'' (1999); ''L'art français : Le XIX^e siècle'' (Flammarion, 2008); (RMN Grand Palais, 2013), et cetera. Laurence des Cars was appointed scientific director of the in July 2007, French operator in charge of the development of the

Louvre Abu Dhabi The Louvre Abu Dhabi ( ar, اللوفر أبوظبي; french: Louvre Abou Dabi) is an art museum located on Saadiyat Island in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. It runs under an agreement between the UAE and France, signed in March 2007, that a ...

. She was also promoted to general curator of heritage in 2011 and was appointed director of the Musée de l'Orangerie in January 2014, by the Minister of Culture,

Aurélie Filippetti Aurélie Filippetti ( ; born 17 June 1973) is a French people, French politician and novelist. She served as Minister of Culture (France), French Minister of Culture and Communications from 2012 until 2014, first in the government of Jean-Marc ...

. On 27 February 2017, she was officially appointed director of the Musée d'Orsay by the then French President

François Hollande François Gérard Georges Nicolas Hollande (; born 12 August 1954) is a French politician who served as President of France from 2012 to 2017. He previously was First Secretary of the Socialist Party (PS) from 1997 to 2008, Mayor of Tulle from ...

. She has been appointed to assume the role of Director of the

from 1 September 2021, becoming the first woman to hold the position in the establishment's 228-year history.

Honours

Laurence des Cars is the chevalier of the

Legion of Honour The National Order of the Legion of Honour (french: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur), formerly the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour ('), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil. Established in 1802 by Napoleon, ...

and National Order of Merit, officer of

Arts and letters Arts and Letters (April 1, 1966 – October 16, 1998) was an American Hall of Fame Champion Thoroughbred racehorse. Background Arts and Letters was a chestnut horse owned and bred by American sportsman and philanthropist Paul Mellon, and tra ...

In 1848, during the reign of Queen Victoria, English painting, had been bogged down in the convention. The

Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (later known as the Pre-Raphaelites) was a group of English painters, poets, and art critics, founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Michael Rossetti, James ...

, by radically innovative aesthetic choices, would bring it back to life.

John Everett Millais Sir John Everett Millais, 1st Baronet, ( , ; 8 June 1829 – 13 August 1896) was an English painter and illustrator who was one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. He was a child prodigy who, aged eleven, became the youngest ...

Dante Gabriel Rossetti Gabriel Charles Dante Rossetti (12 May 1828 – 9 April 1882), generally known as Dante Gabriel Rossetti (), was an English poet, illustrator, painter, translator and member of the Rossetti family. He founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhoo ...

, and

William Holman Hunt William Holman Hunt (2 April 1827 – 7 September 1910) was an English painter and one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. His paintings were notable for their great attention to detail, vivid colour, and elaborate symbolism. ...

are the original members of this Brotherhood. They claimed a freedom and authenticity that they felt painting had lost since

academicism Academic art, or academicism or academism, is a style of painting and sculpture produced under the influence of European academies of art. Specifically, academic art is the art and artists influenced by the standards of the French Académie ...

has regarded

Raphael Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, better known as Raphael (; or ; March 28 or April 6, 1483April 6, 1520), was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. List of works by Raphael, His work is admired for its clarity of form, ease of ...

as a model. Supported by art critic

John Ruskin John Ruskin (8 February 1819 20 January 1900) was an English writer, philosopher, art critic and polymath of the Victorian era. He wrote on subjects as varied as geology, architecture, myth, ornithology, literature, education, botany and politi ...

, who was the voice of

modernity Modernity, a topic in the humanities and social sciences, is both a historical period (the modern era) and the ensemble of particular socio-cultural norm (social), norms, attitudes and practices that arose in the wake of the Renaissancein the " ...

at the time, this group of young people—they were only 20 years old—took inspiration from the

medieval art The medieval art of the Western world covers a vast scope of time and place, over 1000 years of art in Europe, and at certain periods in Western Asia and Northern Africa. It includes major art movements and periods, national and regional art, gen ...

, just like the

neo-Gothic Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

architects did before them. Their works reflect both a sense of nature and a social concern. The second generation of artists of this Brotherhood, led by

and

William Morris William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896) was a British textile designer, poet, artist, novelist, architectural conservationist, printer, translator and socialist activist associated with the British Arts and Crafts Movement. He ...

, applied their principles to the

decor Interior design is the art and science of enhancing the interior of a building to achieve a healthier and more aesthetically pleasing environment for the people using the space. An interior designer is someone who plans, researches, coordina ...

, furniture, and illustrated books, influencing '

Symbolist Symbolism was a late 19th-century art movement of French and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts seeking to represent absolute truths symbolically through language and metaphorical images, mainly as a reaction against naturalism and realis ...

Europe' through their imaginary. Laurence des Cars, chronicler of this artistic story of rebellion, retraces its history in this small 1999 volume, entitled (lit. 'The Pre-Raphaelites: An English Modernism'; English-language edition – ''The Pre-Raphaelites: Romance and Realism''), published by

Éditions Gallimard Éditions Gallimard (), formerly Éditions de la Nouvelle Revue Française (1911–1919) and Librairie Gallimard (1919–1961), is one of the leading French book publishers. In 2003 it and its subsidiaries published 1,418 titles. Founded by Ga ...

in its series of the

. The book is illustrated with 125 illustrations, 95 in colour, and has five chapters: I, 'A Victorian Rebellion'; II, 'Avant-Garde Archaism (1848–51)'; III, 'Individual Destinies (1852–6)'; IV, 'Artistic Careers' (1857–70); V, 'Towards Symbolism (1871–98)'. These are followed by a 'Documents' section containing the opinions and attitudes from the contemporaries of Pre-Raphaelites, and is divided into five parts: 1, Controversy and misunderstanding; 2, Artist poets; 3, The everyday life of a Pre-Raphaelite; 4, Critical views, 5, Rediscovery. The book also includes a further readings list, list of museums, list of illustrations, index of works by artist, and a general index. It has been translated into English, Japanese, and Russian.

Publications

* ''Les Préraphaélites : Un modernisme à l'anglaise'', collection «

» (nº 368), série Arts. Éditions Gallimard, 1999 ** UK edition – ''The Pre-Raphaelites: Romance and Realism'', '

New Horizons ''New Horizons'' is an Interplanetary spaceflight, interplanetary space probe that was launched as a part of NASA's New Frontiers program. Engineered by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) and the Southwest Research ...

' series. Thames & Hudson, 2000 (reprinted 2004, 2010, 2011) ** US edition – ''The Pre-Raphaelites: Romance and Realism'', "

Abrams Discoveries Abrams may refer to: * Abrams (surname), a list of notable people with the surname * '' Abrams v. United States'', 250 U.S. 616 (1919), U.S. Supreme Court decision regarding free speech during times of war * M1 Abrams, main battle tank * Abrams, Wi ...

" series. Harry N. Abrams, 2000 * ''Gérôme : De la peinture à l'image'', coll. « Découvertes Gallimard Hors série ». Éditions Gallimard, 2010 * ''Louvre Abu Dhabi : Naissance d'un musée'', coll. « Catalogue d'exposition ». Louvre éditions and Éditions Flammarion, 2013 ** ''Louvre Abu Dhabi: Birth of a Museum'', Flammarion, 2014

Collective work

* AA.VV., ''Manet, inventeur du Moderne'', « Livres d'Art ». Éditions Gallimard, 2011 ** ''Manet: The Man Who Invented Modernity'', Gallimard, 2011 * AA.VV., ''Apollinaire : Le regard du poète'', « Livres d'Art ». Éditions Gallimard, 2016

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Des Cars, Laurence 1966 births French curators French art historians Knights of the Ordre national du Mérite Chevaliers of the Légion d'honneur École du Louvre alumni Living people House of Pérusse des Cars French women curators