Celebrated museum curator Marie-Claude Beaud dies, aged 78

Marie-Claude Beaud died on 29 December 2024 in Toulon. Luxembourg press reported that she was surrounded by her family.

Born in Besançon, France in 1946, Beaud studied at the University of Besançon before becoming an assistant curator at the Musée de Grenoble in 1969.

She then became the director of the Grenoble museum in 1976, a position she held for two years before a six-year stint as the Curator at the Musée de Toulon, where Beaud opened the museum’s reserves to the public.

After her time in Toulon, Beaud made the bold move to the private sector, working as the founding director of the Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain in 1984. At Cartier, Beaud established artistic residencies and curated a bold array of live performances and exhibition programmes.

She held her founding position at Cartier for more than a decade. She then moved on to multiple other positions within the exhibition world. In 1997, Beaud was named the director of the museums for Les Arts décoratifs, a non-profit organisation that represents the Musée des Arts décoratifs, the Musée Nissim de Camondo, Musée de la mode et du textile, and the Musée de la Publicité.

At the beginning of the millennium, Beaud was appointed to lead the Fondation Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean (MUDAM). Based in Luxembourg City, MUDAM hit the ground running when it fully opened in 2006. With Beaud at the helm, the museum saw a record attendance in its first year of over 115,000 visitors.

“Marie-Claude believed that art was fundamental for a city or a company to think differently,” Jean-Louis Froment, founder of the CAPC Museum of Contemporary Art in Bordeaux told Le Monde. “She was not a woman of institutions, but someone who profoundly changed institutions.”

Beaud’s final position was as the director of the Nouveau Musée National de Monaco, Villa Paloma and Villa Sauber. She held this role from 2009 to 2021 where she continued to bring her wide array of artistic interests to the fore.

Beaud was honoured as a Knight of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by France’s Ministry of Culture in 1986, followed by a Knight of the Legion of Honour. She was also made an Officer of the Order of Adolphe de Nassau and Commander of the Order of the Oak Crown in Luxembourg. Finally, Beaud was made Commander of the Order of Cultural Merit of Monaco in 2021.