Paris's Musee d'Orsay's new head, Sylvain Amic, passes away at 58 years old.
Sylvain Amic, Renowned Art Historian and Museum Leader, Passes Away at 58
Sylvain Amic, a renowned art historian and the leader of Paris's Museé d'Orsay, passed away on Sunday in southern France at the age of 58. His death has been met with shock within France and beyond.
Amic, born in Dakar, Senegal, in 1967 to French parents, had a distinguished career in the art world. He began his journey as a curator at the Musée Picasso in Paris before moving to the Museé d'Orsay. Between 2000 and 2011, he worked at the Museé Fabre, a museum in Montpellier, France, known for its collection of 19th- and 20th-century French art.
In recent years, Amic led a school in Banjul, Gambia, before returning to France to become a curator in the late '90s. His passion for art and history was evident in his work, as he expressed a goal to keep the past alive and to show that it need not remain stale or stodgy.
Amic's leadership at the Museé d'Orsay was marked by innovation and a commitment to making museums contemporary. He recently spearheaded a traveling show of masterworks from the Museé d'Orsay's holdings, which visited Shanghai's Pudong Art Museum this summer. He also brought together a group of 11 museums in Rouen, which he named the Museums of Rouen.
Laurence des Cars, the current president and director of the Louvre Museum, praised Amic as a "promoter of an imaginative and open culture." Emmanuel Macron, the Prime Minister of France, wrote that Amic "knew the universal emancipatory power of our culture, between heritage and creation."
Amic's most recent endeavour was leading plans for a permanent collection rehang at the Museé d'Orsay. He was also serving as an adviser to Rima Abdul Malak, the former French culture minister, starting in 2022.
According to Rima Abdul Malak, Amic died of heart failure. His death is a significant loss to the art world, and his legacy will continue to inspire those who knew him and those who will discover his work.
In an interview with Souquee earlier this year, Amic spoke about the relevance of preserving art and making museums contemporary. He believed in making the museum as contemporary as possible to respond to today's problems. Sylvain Amic's vision will undoubtedly live on in the museums he led and the art he curated.
