Laurence des Cars

Laurence des Cars
Name	Laurence des Cars
Birth date	1969
Birth place	Paris, France
Occupation	Museum director, art historian, curator
Alma mater	École du Louvre, Institut national du patrimoine
Known for	Musée d'Orsay directorship, Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac leadership, Réunion des Musées Nationaux collaborations

Laurence des Cars Laurence des Cars is a French museum director, art historian, and curator known for leading major Parisian institutions and organizing international exhibitions. She has held senior roles at the Musée d'Orsay and the Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac and has curated major retrospectives and acquisitions that shaped collections across Europe and North America. Her career intersects with museums, auction houses, foundations, and cultural ministries.

Early life and education

Born in Paris, des Cars studied at the École du Louvre and trained at the Institut national du patrimoine. Her academic formation linked her to collections and professionals at the Musée d'Orsay, Musée du Louvre, and Centre Pompidou. Early mentorships involved curators from the Petit Palais, Musée Rodin, and the Musée national Picasso-Paris. She undertook research exchanges with institutions such as the British Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Career

Des Cars began her curatorial career at the Musée d'Orsay and the Musée national des Monuments Français, collaborating with teams from the Réunion des Musées Nationaux and the Cité de l'Architecture et du Patrimoine. She served as head of collections at the Musée d'Orsay and later as director of collections at the Musée du Louvre adjunct programs, working alongside directors from the Fondation Louis Vuitton and the Palace of Versailles. Her professional network extended to the Rijksmuseum, Tate Modern, Guggenheim Museum, and the National Gallery, London. She has worked with curators and scholars associated with the Smithsonian Institution, Victoria and Albert Museum, Hermitage Museum, and Museo del Prado.

Her roles incorporated collaboration with cultural policy bodies including the Ministry of Culture (France), the Conseil d'État, and the Assemblée nationale on heritage matters. She negotiated loans and partnerships involving the State Hermitage Museum, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, and the Uffizi Gallery. Des Cars liaised with auction houses like Christie's and Sotheby's and foundations such as the Fondation de France and the Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain for acquisitions and sponsorship.

Major exhibitions and acquisitions

As curator and director she organized major exhibitions that connected artists and movements across institutions: exhibitions on Édouard Manet, Claude Monet, Gustave Courbet, Paul Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh, and Edgar Degas with loans from the Musée d'Orsay, Musée Marmottan Monet, National Gallery of Art, and private collections. She curated cross-disciplinary projects involving works by Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Georges Seurat, Camille Pissarro, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, bringing together pieces from the Musée Picasso, Museum of Modern Art, and the Art Institute of Chicago. Exhibitions under her aegis featured sculpture and decorative arts from the Musée Rodin, Musée des Arts Décoratifs, and the Victoria and Albert Museum.

She led acquisition campaigns that secured works by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Théodore Géricault, Honoré Daumier, and Mary Cassatt for public collections, coordinating provenance research with the Comité du patrimoine culturel mobilier and legal teams from the Cour de cassation. Collaborative purchases involved partnerships with the Getty Foundation, the Kress Foundation, and the Sammlung Boros. She negotiated major loans and gifts from collectors including representatives of the Princeton University Art Museum, Yale University Art Gallery, and the Harvard Art Museums.

Leadership at major institutions

Des Cars served as director of the Musée de l'Orangerie and later as president-director of the Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac, where she engaged with indigenous art specialists and curators from the National Museum of Anthropology (Mexico), the Australian Museum, and the Canadian Museum of History. She became director of the Musée d'Orsay and of the Musée de l'Orangerie in joint leadership roles, coordinating with boards that include members from the Fondation Giacometti, the Fondation Beyeler, and the Fondation Custodia. Her leadership involved strategic partnerships with the European Union cultural programs, the UNESCO World Heritage initiatives, and bilateral cultural agreements with the Japanese Agency for Cultural Affairs and the Chinese Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

She has represented French museums at international forums such as the International Council of Museums, the ICOM, the Association of Art Museum Directors, and the European Museum Forum, and engaged with philanthropic stakeholders including the Rockefeller Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the Arnoldus Foundation.

Honors and publications

Des Cars has been recognized by institutions and orders including nominations and honors tied to the Ordre national du Mérite and the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. She has lectured at universities and schools including Université Paris-Sorbonne, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Columbia University, and Oxford University. Her publications and exhibition catalogues have been published in collaboration with the Éditions Gallimard, the Skira, the Thames & Hudson, and the Réunion des Musées Nationaux–Grand Palais. She has authored essays and catalogues on artists such as Gustave Moreau, Théodore Rousseau, James Tissot, and Odilon Redon and contributed to journals linked to the Bulletin de la Société de l'Histoire de l'Art Français and the Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes.

Category:French curators Category:Directors of museums in France