Sylvain Amic appointed director of the Orsay and Orangerie museums

The former director of the Rouen museums was chosen to succeed Christophe Leribault, appointed in February at the head of the Château de Versailles. This would be a “concerted choice” by Rachida Dati and Emmanuel Macron.

LThe second time will have been the good one. Sylvain Amic, 56, general curator of heritage, should be officially appointed, in the following hours, president of the Orsay and Orangerie Museums -Valéry Giscard d’Estaing. The position had escaped him in the home stretch in 2017, when the choice fell on a woman, Laurence des Cars, finally leaving for the Louvre in 2021. Sylvain Amic succeeds Christophe Leribault, who only stayed for two short years in service before being appointed to the Château de Versailles last February. The presidency announced rapid succession. However, we had to wait two months to find out who would take charge of the second largest museum in France, in terms of number of entries, but above all of the first impressionist collection in the world. Orsay is an eminently prestigious and universally admired establishment, but treated strangely by its supervision, given the waltz of its leaders, as if impressionism were a sufficiently safe value to withstand political hazards.

Sylvain Amic, experienced pianist, has practiced on all kinds of scores and knows eighth notes. In the south, from Nice, his region of origin, to Montpellier, where he was a curator at the Fabre Museum in the early 2000s, he participated in exhibitions devoted to loudmouths, the thunderous Courbet or the expressionist Emil Nolde, each having stopped at the Grand Palais in Paris. In 2011, a change of climate, he returned to the land… of the Impressionists, Normandy, to take charge of the Museum of Fine Arts in Rouen, then a few years later, to create an entity bringing together the eleven museums of the Rouen metropolis, where its burst exhibition program will boost both the city and the region.

In 2022, the man leaves his position as director of one of the most beautiful museums in France to go behind the scenes, as advisor to the Minister of Culture Rima Abdu Malak. We owe him, among other things, fundamental preparatory work on the draft framework law on the restitution of looted works, human remains and cultural property requested by the former colonies. Or the implementation of the acquisition, thanks to the sponsorship of the LVMH group, of a painting by Gustave Caillebotte… by the Musée d’Orsay, which it celebrated in the large impressionist gallery with its minister in February 2023. A little more than a year later, here he is appointed by President Macron, “in consultation with the new minister”, Rachida Dati, at the head of this same establishment where projects have already been initiated by his predecessor. Last June – almost yesterday – Christophe Leribault had in fact presented an entire restructuring program, from the hanging of collections to the overhaul of certain points of the building, including the entrance to the old station, saturated by more than three million of annual visitors. While having his own room for maneuver, Sylvain Amic will have to jump on the bandwagon and find the necessary financing to continue the journey.