François Quintin takes over the management of the Lambert Collection in Avignon – Liberation

2023-05-31 21:02:04

Accustomed to going back and forth between public institutions and the private sector, the current visual arts delegate from the Ministry of Culture has been chosen to head the collection of 550 masterpieces.

Application files had been piling up on the desk of former gallery owner Yvon Lambert for several months. And it was finally François Quintin, current delegate for the visual arts at the Ministry of Culture, who was chosen from among the thirty candidates to direct the Collection Lambert in Avignon. He succeeds Alain Lombard, who held these positions since 2018. In accordance with the procedure provided for an Art Center of National Interest, this application was validated by the Board of Directors of the Collection with the approval of the Minister of the culture. Indeed, a museum born from the donation of the star gallery owner to the State in 2012, the Lambert Collection constitutes the largest private donation of the last fifty years, a gift of around 550 masterpieces to French public collections, including the saga, surrounded by shadowy areas and dysfunctions, gave a lot of trouble to State agents, in particular to the National Center for Plastic Arts, which manages it. It is therefore François Quintin who will direct this monster collection from September, made up of works by artists as prestigious as Nan Goldin, Andres Serrano, Christian Boltanski, Daniel Buren or Douglas Gordon…

From the Ecole du Louvre to the Fondation Cartier

Born in 1967, François Quintin has a professional career made of back and forth between the private sector and the public sector, comfortable running a gallery, being part of the team of a foundation or directing a public institution. If he has occupied, since 2020, the post of delegate for the visual arts of the Ministry of Culture, François Quintin started at the Fondation Cartier, in Paris, in 1994, after studying art history at the Ecole Louvre and a visit to the Guggenheim Museum in New York. Then, he headed for Champagne-Ardenne in 2001, where he took over the reins of the Regional Fund for Contemporary Art. Back to private life in 2007 at the Parisian gallery Xippas, in the Marais. After several years at the head of the Lafayette Anticipations project, François Quintin becomes the artistic director of this place which opens its doors in 2018 before joining the Ministry of Culture in 2020. His experience will be welcome in Avignon, a city with a social fabric fragile, to lead a collection made up of masterpieces shown in the two 18th century mansions, which were given a new wing in 2015. On May 25, Dilecta editions published a 450-page book with a choice of emblematic works of this collector’s passion (An intimate history of art, Yvon Lambert, a collection, a donation, a place, 440 pages). From June 30, we will see Pascale Marthine Tayou, Eva Jospin, Louise Lawler and an exhibition of paintings with masterpieces… from the Lambert donation.