The Art Institute of Chicago announce the appointment of Sylvain Bellenger as the Searle Chair and Curator of the museum’s Department of Medieval through Modern European Painting and Sculpture. Bellenger, a French citizen, will assume his new responsibilities on October 1, 2012.
This position was previously held by Douglas Druick, who became the Art Institute’s President and Eloise W. Martin Director in August 2011. The Department of Medieval through Modern European Painting and Sculpture is the largest of the Art Institute’s 11 curatorial groups, with a collection that includes the museum’s renowned holdings of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works; modern European masters such as Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, and Vasily Kandinsky; and earlier paintings by such artists as El Greco, Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes, and Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. Bellenger is currently Chief Curator of National Heritage at the Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art in Paris. – www.artinstituteofchicago.org