Museum Series No. 6 Musée de Cluny x Walters Art Museum

Villa Albertine and the Center for Curatorial Leadership are thrilled to host an exceptional transatlantic conversation on the future of museums between Séverine Lepape, Director of the Musée de Cluny – National Museum of the Middle Ages and Julia Marciari-Alexander, PhD, Andrea B. and John H. Laporte Director of The Walters Art Museum.

This discussion will be moderated by Elizabeth W. Easton, Director and Co-Founder of CCL.

The event will be streamed live on Villa Albertine’s YouTube Channel, starting at 6 pm EST.

The Speakers

Séverine Lepape, Director of the Musée de Cluny – National Museum of the Middle Ages

Séverine Lepape has served as Director of Musée de Cluny – National Museum of the Middle Ages since September 2019. Since 2014, Séverine Lepape has been a curator at the Musée du Louvre, specifically in the Department of Graphic Arts, where she oversees the Edmond de Rothschild collection.

As an archivist-palaeographer specializing in illumination and printmaking, she holds a doctorate in medieval history from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) under the supervision of Jean-Claude Schmitt. Prior to her position at the Musée du Louvre, she worked at the Bibliothèque nationale de France from 2005 to 2014, initially as the curator of prints and drawings from the 15th to 16th centuries and later as the head of the Reserve Department of Prints and Photography. Madame Lepape is the author of numerous exhibition catalogs and reference works. She has also taught at several institutions, including the École du Louvre, École nationale des Chartes, and the Institut national du patrimoine.

A specialist in medieval iconography and Northern Europe and French graphic arts of the 15th and 16th centuries, she has published numerous acclaimed scholarly articles and books. She has curated numerous exhibitions, including “Mystérieux Coffrets” (Mysterious Coffers, Musée de Cluny, 2019-2020). 

On May 22, Séverine Lepape inaugurated the museum’s new layout, after a ten-year renovation. She was focused on enhancing the museum’s identity and strengthening the unity of its collection, while increasing its urban visibility and the readability of its collections. 

Dr. Julia Marciari-Alexander, Andrea B. and John H. Laporte Director of The Walters Art Museum

Dr. Julia Marciari-Alexander has served as Executive Director & CEO of the Walters Art Museum since 2013. The fifth director of the Walters, she is the first woman to hold the post.  During her tenure, she has overseen the award-winning, $11 million refurbishment of the historic Hackerman House at 1 West Mount Vernon Place, launched a series of initiatives that examine the institution’s origins and map steps to embed diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion (DEAI) in the organization, and broadened and diversified the board of trustees and leadership team at the museum. She is inspired by the collaborative work that she and the team at the museum do to create exhibitions and public and educational programs that connect with the wide-ranging and diverse communities in Baltimore and beyond.

In addition, Marciari-Alexander serves as Vice-President of the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD) Board of Trustees. In Maryland, she serves on the boards of the Maryland Citizens for the Arts, the Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance, and the Center Club.

Prior to joining the Walters, Marciari-Alexander was Deputy Director for Curatorial Affairs at the San Diego Museum of Art where she served from 2008 to 2013, as Interim Co-Director (2009–2010) and Interim Deputy Director for Education (2010–2011). Before moving to San Diego, she spent more than 10 years at the Yale Center for British Art, first as Assistant/Associate Curator of Paintings & Sculpture, then as Associate Director of Programmatic Affairs and Associate Director of Exhibitions and Publications. During her tenure there, she also taught numerous courses for the University’s History of Art department. Marciari-Alexander earned her BA in art history and French at Wellesley College; her MA in French at NYU; and her MA and PhD in the history of art at Yale University.

Elizabeth W. Easton, Director and Co-Founder of the Center for Curatorial Leadership

Elizabeth Easton is the Director of the Center for Curatorial Leadership (CCL), a non-profit organization she co-founded with Agnes Gund in 2007 to train museum curators in the fundamentals of management and leadership. Now in its sixteenth year and with almost 400 alumni around the world, CCL continues to provide curators with the tools necessary to assume and succeed in leadership positions.

She previously served as the first elected president of the Association for Art Museum Curators from 2003-2006, and as chair of the Department of European Paintings and Sculpture at the Brooklyn Museum from 1999-2007. Easton earned her Ph.D. at Yale University, writing her dissertation on Edouard Vuillard’s interiors of the 1890s.

She is the recipient of the Wilbur Cross Medal—the highest honor accorded to alumni of Yale University’s Graduate School—and in 2008 was appointed Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et Lettres by the French Government. She is a trustee of MASS MoCA and is also on the Visiting Committee of the Department of Paintings Conservation at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 

About the Villa Albertine Museum Series

The Villa Albertine Museum Series, launched by Villa Albertine and the Center for Curatorial Leadership, is a new platform to explore the future of museums on both sides of the Atlantic. It will bring together 24 women leaders from premier cultural institutions in France and the US for monthly conversations in 2023 on how museums must reinvent themselves to meet the challenges of the present.

The Villa Albertine Museum Series Spring Dialogues are made possible thanks to the generous support of Cartier and the Firends of Villa Albertine, notably Béatrice Stern, Sana Sabbagh and Denise Littlefield Sobel.