Christophe Leribault, currently president of the Palace of Versailles, has been announced as the new director of the Musée du Louvre after Laurence des Cars stepped down from the position on 24 February. Her resignation came four months after the spectacular theft of French crown jewels from the museum. A series of strikes by disaffected staff and the poor condition of the building added to the pressures she was under and, on Monday, the interim report of a parliamentary inquiry asked why des Cars – who offered her resignation immediately after the theft but had it refused – was still in post. In an interview with Le Figaro on Tuesday, des Cars said that it was now impossible for her to advance the much-needed modernisation of the museum. As for the months of criticism, it had been her job, she said, to ‘act as a lightning conductor’. In its statement, the Élysée Palace described her resignation as ‘an act of responsibility in a moment when the greatest museum in the world required a return to calm and a new strong impetus’ to face the challenges ahead. Leribault, who has been president of the Palace of Versailles for nearly two years, now adds running the most-visited museum in the world to his impressive CV. The 18th-century specialist will be making a return to the Louvre, where he was appointed deputy director of the graphic arts department in 2006, becoming director of the Louvre-affiliated Musée National Eugène-Delacroix a year later. In 2012 he was appointed director of the Petit Palais, overseeing a series of critically acclaimed exhibitions by artists ranging from the Neapolitan baroque painter Luca Giordano to the Impressionist James Tissot. This is the second time he takes over the running of a museum from des Cars, whom he succeeded as director of the Musée d’Orsay and the Musée de l’Orangerie in 2021, but on this occasion in much more challenging circumstances.
Catherine Pégard is the new minister of culture in France. She takes over after Rachida Dati resigned to concentrate on her campaign to become mayor of Paris in the upcoming municipal elections. Dati proved to be a great survivor in the post, serving under four prime ministers despite being charged with illegal lobbying, for which she will go on trial this autumn. Pégard, a former editor of Le Point and, most recently, a cultural advisor President Macron, was the president of the Palace of Versailles for 12 years, preceding Christophe Leribault.
The DePaul Art Museum in Chicago will close at the end of June. DePaul University, which manages the museum, announced on 26 February that it is shuttering the institution, founded in 1985, to ‘ensure long-term financial sustainability’. The decision comes after the university laid off 114 people – more than seven per cent of its staff – in an attempt to cut spending by $27.4m after decline in international students, as reported by WTTW News in December. The museum’s 4,000-strong collection includes work by seminal Chicago artists such as Christina Ramberg and Candida Alvarez. In its statement the university said it will ‘explore how the museum building and its collections can continue to serve as assets’ in the coming weeks.
The chief operating officer of the High Museum of Art in Atlanta has resigned after an internal investigation alleged that he had misappropriated $600,000 in museum funds, ARTnews reports. Brady Lum, who has been COO of the museum since 2019, is thought to have withdrawn the funds over a three- to four-year period, reports the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC). The Woodruff Arts Center, which oversees the museum, launched an investigation after executives discovered financial irregularities in early December; Lum is reported to have resigned on 9 December. Hala Moddelmog, the CEO and president of Woodruff, told theAJC that the organisation believed that Lum ‘abused his executive level position at the High to access the money and hide what he did for several years’. The matter has been referred to the US Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia.
Seventy-four ancient Khmer artefacts from the collection of the disgraced art dealer Douglas Latchford have been returned to Cambodia, the Phnom Penh Post reports. The repatriation results from an agreement struck in 2020 between the country’s ministry of culture and the Latchford family. Latchford, who collected and sold artefacts believed to have been smuggled out of Cambodia, was indicted on charges including conspiracy and wire fraud in 2019, but died in 2020 at the age of 88 before he could stand trial. After his death, his daughter Julia Copleston forfeited $12m from Latchford’s estate to help settle a civil case concerning the stolen objects, and agreed to return the 125 Cambodian artefacts in his personal collection. Some objects were returned in 2021 and 2023. The returned objects, which include a totemic sandstone sculpture from the ninth century, will become part of the collection of the National Museum of Cambodia.
The collector and philanthropist Iris Cantor has died at the age of 95. Born in Brooklyn in 1931, Cantor began her career as a stockbroker at the financial services firm Gerald Cantor, whose founder, Bernard Gerald Cantor, she went on to marry. In 1978 the couple established the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Foundation, donating tens of millions of dollars to cultural, medical and educational institutions in the United States and abroad. Among them were the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Brooklyn Museum in New York, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and Stanford University’s art museum, which was renamed the Cantor Arts Center in 1999. Having amassed a collection of more than 750 sculptures and drawings by Rodin, the Cantors donated more than 450 works by the artist to museums around the world. Iris Cantor was also a trustee of several institutions, including the Met and LACMA.
The director of the Petit Palais, Annick Lemoine, was announced as the new director of the Musée d’Orsay on Tuesday. The post has been vacant since Sylvain Amic died suddenly in August 2025. Lemoine, an expert in Caravaggio and his followers, was previously director of the Musée Cognacq-Jay in Paris.
