Sylvain Amic had been appointed head of the museum d'Orsay and the Orangerie since April 2024.
Sylvain Amic died brutally at the age of 58, the French Minister of Culture, Rachida Dati, announced on Sunday, praising an “open and creative mind”: “Sylvain Amic was a warm man and caring for others. From Rouen to Paris, to Orsay and the Orangerie, he still believed in a culture open and accessible to all." French President Macron posted on X: “Sylvain Amic was working to ensure that everyone could access the wonders of art, from Soulages to Manet.”
With him the Musée d'Orsay continued to ensure very high attendance rates and famous exhibitions, such as the one on Gustave Caillebotte a year ago. He made the climate issue one of the museum's priorities, notably with the operation “100 works that tell the story of the climate” with some 30 regional museums in January.
Former adviser to Rima Abdul Malak at the Ministry of Culture, Sylvain Amic was appointed by Emmanuel Macron on the proposal of Rachida Dati as president of Musée d' Orsay and the Orangerie.
Born in Dakar in 1967, Sylvain Amic started his career as a teacher before embracing the career of curator in 1997. He had been curator of two exhibitions at the Grand Palais: the first retrospective devoted in France to the German expressionist painter Emil Nolde in 2008, and the exhibition “Bohèmes” in 2012. He had notably led the Réunion des musées métropolitains de Rouen Normandie until the summer of 2022, before joining the cabinet of Rima Abdul Malak as an adviser in charge of museums, crafts, design and fashion. Sylvain Amic was commissioned in 2018 with curator Olivia Voisin by the then Minister of Culture, Françoise Nyssen, to set up a project for the circulation of works all over France.
Main Image: © Musée d'Orsay, dist. GrandPalaisRmn / Allison Bellido