Museum Series No. 1 Bibliothèque nationale de France x Library of Congress

Villa Albertine and the Center for Curatorial Leadership are thrilled to host an exceptional transatlantic conversation on the role of libraries as museum between Laurence Engel, President of the Bibliothèque nationale de France, and Dr. Carla Hayden, 14th Librarian of Congress.

This discussion will be moderated by Colin B. Bailey, Director of the Morgan Library & Museum.

The event will be streamed live on Villa Albertine’s Youtube Channel, starting at 5.30 pm EST.

The Speakers

Dr. Carla Hayden, 14th Librarian of Congress

Carla Hayden was sworn in as the 14th Librarian of Congress on September 14, 2016. Hayden, the first woman and the first African American figure to lead the national library, was nominated to the position by President Barack Obama on February 24, 2016, and her nomination was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on July 13. 

Prior to her latest post she served, since 1993, as CEO of the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore, Maryland. Hayden was nominated by President Obama to be a member of the National Museum and Library Services Board in January 2010 and was confirmed to that post by the Senate in June 2010. Prior to joining the Pratt Library, Hayden was deputy commissioner and chief librarian of the Chicago Public Library from 1991 to 1993. She was an assistant professor for Library and Information Science at the University of Pittsburgh from 1987 to 1991. Hayden was library services coordinator for the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago from 1982 to 1987. She began her career with the Chicago Public Library as the young adult services coordinator from 1979 to 1982 and as a library associate and children’s librarian from 1973 to 1979. 

Hayden was president of the American Library Association from 2003 to 2004. In 1995, she was the first African American figure to receive Library Journal’s Librarian of the Year Award in recognition of her outreach services at the Pratt Library, which included an after-school center for Baltimore teens offering homework assistance and college and career counseling. Hayden received a B.A. from Roosevelt University and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the Graduate Library School of the University of Chicago. 

Laurence Engel, President of the Bibliothèque nationale de France

Born in 1966, Laurence Engel was appointed President of the National Library of France and took up her post on April 11, 2016. 

A graduate of Ecole Normale Fontenay-aux-Roses, Sciences Po and Ecole nationale d’Administration, she is a member of the Cour des Comptes (French Court of Audit). 

After joining Jérôme Clément, then President of ARTE, a public Franco-German TV network that promotes programming in the areas of culture and the arts and later on the public television network “La Cinquième” in 1998, she was appointed Adviser on Audiovisual Matters to Catherine Tasca, then French Minister of Culture and Communication, in the period 2000 to 2002. She was Cultural Advisor to Mayor of Paris Bertrand Delanoë, in the period 2003 to 2008 and afterwards Director of Cultural Affairs for the City of Paris until 2012. 

She acted as Director of the Cabinet Office of Aurélie Filippetti, then French Minister of Culture and Communication, for the period 2012-2014. Consequently, she joined the Cour des Comptes and was, furthermore, appointed as Ombudsman for the Book. During that period of time, Laurence Engel acted also as Chair of the Board of Directors of the Institut National de l’Histoire de l’Art (INHA) and Chair of the Finance Commission of the Agence France Presse. 

She has published various books and articles, in particular about Cultural policy, for the French literary magazine Esprit. 

Colin B. Bailey, Director of the Morgan Library & Museum

Colin B. Bailey is the Director of the Morgan Library & Museum, a position he has held since 2015. Prior to joining the Morgan, Bailey held the position of Director of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, overseeing both the de Young Museum and the Legion of Honor. After periods at the Philadelphia Museum of Fine Arts, the Kimbell Art Museum, and the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, he worked at New York’s Frick Collection for thirteen years (between 2000 and 2013), becoming Deputy Director and Peter Jay Sharp Curator.

A scholar of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century French art, Bailey is a specialist of Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and has been responsible for many publications and exhibitions over the course of his career. His book, Patriotic Taste: Collecting Modern Art in Pre-Revolutionary Paris, was awarded the Mitchell Prize for best art history book of 2002‒2003. An Officier de l’Ordre des arts et des lettres, in 2020 he was awarded the Prix du Rayonnement de la langue et de la littérature françaises by the Académie française.

During his tenure, the Morgan has organized some of its most critically-acclaimed exhibitions, including David Hockey: Drawing from Life, John Singer Sargent: Portraits in Charcoal, Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth, and Pontormo: Miraculous Encounters. Among the many initiatives Bailey has spearheaded are the exterior restoration of J. Pierpont Morgan’s Library; the establishment of the endowed position of Sherman Fairchild Head of the Thaw Conservation Center; and the inauguration of the Belle da Costa Greene Curatorial Fellowships, created for promising scholars from historically underrepresented communities in the curatorial and special collections fields.

Bailey continues to write for the New York Review of Books, The Art Newspaper, and the Burlington Magazine, and regularly contributes to a variety of scholarly publications and exhibition catalogues.

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.