Musée d’Orsay curator Claire Bernardi has been selected as the new head of the Musée de l’Orangerie in Paris.
The Musée de l’Orangerie, established in 1852, is famed for its collection of 19th and 20th-century art history. It is most famous for the work Nymphéas (also known as ‘Water Lillies’) by Claude Monet, a collection of eight sprawling artworks. In her new position, Bernardi will be working closely with Christopher Leribault, the newly-appointed head of Musée d’Orsay. Leribault had replaced Laurence Des Cars, who went on to serve as the director of the Louvre Museum in Paris.
Claire Bernardi was recently in the news for curating the exhibition “Chaïm Soutine / Willem de Kooning, la peinture incarnée,” (currently on display at the Musée de l’Orangerie). Bernardi had been with them since 2012. Prior to that, she was a curator at the Paris-based Centre national des arts plastiques. In her tenure there, Bernardi most prominently curated the show “Picasso, Blue and Rose” which showcased two different periods in the life of the modern maestro.
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Roselyne Bachelot (Minister of Culture, France) issued a statement, praising the selection of Bernardi. She said that the new head of Musée de l’Orangerie will undertake “contemporary rereadings of the collection.” She also added that Bernardi will do so with an eye toward “the international development of the institution”.