The information struck the museum world with amazement when it fell on Sunday evening: Sylvain AMIC, president of the public establishment of the Museums of Orsay and the Orangery since April 2024, died brutally from discomfort, Sunday August 31, 2025 at the age of 58. Rachida Dati, Minister of Culture, praised a “Open and creative spirit”while Emmanuel Macron recalled on X that “His disappearance is a shock. Sylvain Amic worked so that everyone could access the wonders of art, from Soulages to Manet ”.
Everyone who knew him knew how much Sylvain Amic was an endearing personality, with a kindness that he bore on his face and an unusual humanity in the environment, which drew his source from an equally unusual journey.
Born in Dakar in 1967 into a family of teachers, he had indeed first taken a path distant from museums. After scientific studies, he teaches primary school in the Nice region, then in Gambia. At the same time, he undertook a license in art history and succeeded in 1997 the competition of the National Heritage Institute, began a career as an atypical curator.
At the Fabre Museum in Montpellier, where he was recruited in 2000, he took care of the 19th century collections, of modern and contemporary art. He actively contributes to the vast renovation project of the place, which reopens in 2007. True to the museum and the region, he remains there a decade. This is why the mayor of Montpellier Michaël Delafosse wanted to show his emotion on Sunday evening: “In these moments of absolute sadness, we think very loudly of his family, his loved ones, and his partner, Florence. And we think of Sylvain AMIC, whose extreme elegance, kindness, very great culture, impressed all those who met him. »»
In 2011, the city of Rouen called her to lead her municipal museums, then all eleven museums in the metropolis. He initiates a proactive policy there: free access to the permanent collections, enhancement of funds by the cycle during collections, study of restructuring of the Beauvoisine site. He also established a charter for parity between men and women.
In parallel with these local functions, it is requested several times by the Ministry of Culture. In 2018, Françoise Nyssen entrusted him with a mission to circulate national works in the regions. In 2022, he joined the Cabinet of Rima Abdul Malak as an advisor in charge of museums, art, design and fashion trades, working on a plan for arts and rendering bills.
In April 2024, after having already been unhappy in 2017 against Laurence des Cars, he was appointed by Emmanuel Macron at the head of the establishment bringing together Orsay and the Orangery. Successor of Christophe Leribault, he inherits among the most frequented institutions in France: nearly five million visitors in 2024. In this context, he is as interested in the management of flows as well as in large -scale projects.
Specialist in modern and contemporary art, exhibition commissioner at the Grand Palais – notably on Emil Nolde in 2008 and Bohemes In 2012 – he combined a scientific career with a marked commitment to the accessibility of culture. His death put an end brutal to a presidency started just over a year earlier, and leaves several sites unanswered for Orsay and the Orangery.
