Éric de Chassey
Éric de Chassey, born in 1965 in Pittsburgh, USA, is the Director of the French Academy in Rome – Villa Medici since 2009. He is also Professor of Contemporary Art History at the École Normale Supérieure in Lyon.
Since the beginning, his scientific activities have focused on a cultural area – the US- and a theme- abstract art. But he has also worked on Matisse, photography, the history of transnational artistic relationships, the notions of tradition and resistance in reception, as well as the relationships between art and society, from the beginning of the XXth century to the present. His research has been publicised through books, symposia and exhibitions.
He has published books and essays on XXth and XXIst century art, among them La violence décorative: Matisse et les Etats-Unis (1998); La peinture efficace, Une histoire de l’abstraction aux États-Unis, 1910-1960 (2001); Pascal Pinaud, Transpainting (2003); Eugène Leroy, Autoportrait (2004); Platitudes, Une histoire de la photographie plate (2006); Olivier Debré, monographie (2007); Marcia Hafif, Italian Paintings 1961-1969 (2010); Philippe Gronon (2010); and Pour l’Histoire de l’Art (2011).
He has also curated numerous exhibitions, accompanied by publications, including Abstraction-Abstractions: Provisional Geometries (Saint-Étienne Museum of modern art, 1997); [Corps] Social (Paris, École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, 1999); Made in USA: American Art from 1908 to 1948) (Bordeaux, Gallery of Fine Arts; Rennes, Museum of Fine Arts; Montpellier, Museum of Fine Arts; 2001-2002); Kelly-Matisse, Plant Drawings (Paris, Centre Pompidou; Saint Louis Art Museum; 2002); Stroll On ! British Abstraction, 1959-1967 (Geneva, MAMCO, 2005-2006); Repartir à zéro, comme si la peinture n’avait jamais existé, 1945-1949 (Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon, 2008-2009); Alex Katz: An American Way of Seeing (Sara Hilden Museum, Tampere; Museum of Fine Arts, Grenoble; Museum Kurhaus, Kleve, 2009); Ils ont regardé Matisse. Réceptions abstraites de Matisse, 1948-1968 (Matisse Museum, Le Cateau-Cambrésis, 2009); La pesanteur et la grâce, Abstractions et spiritualité (Collège des Bernardins, Paris ; French Academy in Rome – Villa Medici, 2010-2011); Les mutants (French Academy in Rome – Villa Medici, 2010); Jean-Auguste Dominique Ingres – Ellsworth Kelly (French Academy in Rome – Villa Medici, 2010); Europunk. The Visual Culture of Punk in Europe, 1976-1980 (French Academy in Rome – Villa Medici; Mamco, Geneva; Charleroi, BPS22 ; 2010-2011); Poussin et Moïse. Du dessin à la tapisserie (French Academy in Rome – Villa Medici; Bordeaux, Musée des Beaux-Arts, 2011); Les sujets de l’abstraction. Peinture non-figurative de la seconde École de Paris. 101 chefs-d’œuvre de la Fondation Gandur pour l’art (Geneva, Musée Rath; Montpellier, Musée Fabre; 2011-2012); Marie Cool Fabio Balducci, « Live & Obscure » (French Academy in Rome – Villa Medici, 2011); Jean-Marc Bustamante (Pieter Saenredam) – Villa Medici (French Academy in Rome – Villa Medici, 2012), Éric Poitevin (French Academy in Rome – Villa Medici, 2012), Soulages XXIe siècle (Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon; French Academy in Rome – Villa Medici, 2012-2013). He is currently working on several exhibitions that will take place in Italy, France, Algeria and Poland, about Jean-Luc Moulène, Andrzej Wroblewski, the end of painting and its return in Rome and Paris between the 1960s and 1980s, the visual culture of the European ultra-left in the 1970s…