Pierre Stépanoff appointed Director of the Musée de Picardie

All the versions of this article: English , français
Pierre Stépanoff
See the image in its page

13/2/23 - Appointment - Amiens, Musée de Picardie - The recent departure of Laure Dalon - who moved to Toulouse to head the Musée des Augustins in the autumn - left a vacancy at Amiens, where she worked between 2009 and 2012 before taking over as director in 2017 (see the news item of 16/9/22). It is a personality from the museums of the south of France who will soon succeed her: curator at the Musée Fabre in Montpellier since 2015, Pierre Stépanoff is well known to the readers of La Tribune de l’Art for his formidable work in this institution, where he was in charge of old master collections. After a literary preparatory class at the Lycée Henri-IV, Pierre Stépanoff went on to study the history of philosophy at the Sorbonne before joining the Institut national du patrimoine (INP) in 2014. He is no stranger to the Musée de Picardie in Amiens, where he did one of his INP internships, before moving on to the Musée Fabre in Montpellier. Under the aegis of Michel Hilaire, he organised his first exhibition there in 2017-2018, focusing on the figure of Abraham Fontanel and the Société des Beaux-Arts de Montpellier (see article). Visitors will also remember the fascinating exhibition on the Deydé Chapel (see article) and the Jean Ranc retrospective in 2020 (see article), followed just a few months ago by "Le voyage en Italie de Louis Gauffier", which brought this neoclassical artist, a friend of François-Xavier Fabre, back to the forefront of the artistic scene (see article). Also worth mentioning is "Dans le secret des œuvres d’art", an exhibition organised in 2018 to present to the public the results of a campaign to restore the museum’s works, and "La beauté en partage" (see article), which recently presented the enviable results of fifteen years of acquisitions.

Montpellier is indeed renowned for the dynamism of its scientific policy, cheerfully multiplying purchases and preemptions, of which we cannot give an exhaustive list here, but which brilliantly symbolises the singularity of the Musée Fabre among French museums: Pierre Stépanoff thus confided to us that he had followed in seven years a hundred or so acquisitions of paintings and sculptures, regularly reviewed in La Tribune de l’Art, even if it is impossible for us to keep up with such a frantic pace. Pierre Stépanoff, who is responsible for paintings and sculptures from the Renaissance to 1850, has until now supervised the museum’s documentation, where he has also led numerous lecture series. He has also made many scientific contributions - essays or notes - to various exhibition catalogues, not to mention publications aimed at the general public, such as the Musée Fabre’s highly successful Guide des collections, a new edition of which - 303 pages! - has been available since 2021.

Art historians and art lovers alike are impatiently awaiting an essential work: the catalogue raisonné of the Alfred Bruyas collection, which has been in the making for several years and for which Pierre Stépanoff is the scientific director. Initially scheduled for 2021, the bicentenary of the birth of this major patron, its release is now announced for the next few months as the project has been enriched by numerous discoveries. We can only hope that the future director of the Musée de Picardie will continue in this vein: renovated in 2020 (see article), the Amiens institution remains full of promise. Several projects are still to be carried out, and Pierre Stépanoff will certainly be keen to continue the re-housing of the essential Picardy collections while continuing their publication, particularly for the works of the Middle Ages or the 19th century paintings, which are regularly enriched. In 2021, the excellent exhibition on the Puys of Amiens (see article) materialised the essential link between the museum and the cathedral, which today remains the city’s major - and most visited - monument.

Drawing on his experience in Montpellier, Pierre Stépanoff should thus devote himself to organising major exhibitions based on the main artists in the museum’s collections, without neglecting Picardy’s identity or local history, even if the former region whose name the institution still bears with pride has been removed from the French administrative map with the stroke of a pen. Perhaps we will see the famous retrospective exhibition Langlois, which some people seem to be calling for, the painting acquired by Madonna at the end of the 1980s having recently aroused passions (see the news item of 21/1/23). Let’s hope that the future director will be able to find an honourable - and lasting - solution for one of the jewels of Amiens’ heritage: the Musée de l’Hôtel de Berny. Closed for renovation, it certainly deserves to reopen its doors quickly in order to present its remarkable collections to the public, which are currently lying in storage. The renovation of the Musée de Picardie was completed in 2020, and the City of Amiens should be able to turn its attention to this private mansion bequeathed by a generous benefactor and refurbished in the 1960s to house the Musée d’Art et d’Histoire locale and regional history. Undoubtedly, there will be no shortage of projects for Pierre Stépanoff, who is due to take up his post at the end of May [1].

Your comments

In order to be able to discuss articles and read the contributions of other subscribers, you must subscribe to The Art Tribune. The advantages and conditions of this subscription, which will also allow you to support The Art Tribune, are described on the subscription page.

If you are already a subscriber, sign in.