HName: Huyghe, René [Louis]
DateBorn: 1906
Placeborn: Arras, Pas-de-Calais, France
Datedied: 1997
Placedied: Paris, France
HDescrip: Louvre chief curator of paintings and historian; employed a psychological methodology for a universal history of art. Huyghe was born to Louis Huyghe, a journalist and Marie Delvoye (Huyghe) a university professor. He was classically trained at the Lycées Montaigne and Michelet. Huyghe entered the Sorbonne studying philosophy and aesthetics under the auspices of the Ecole du Louvre, achieving a B.A., (Licence es lettres). He joined the Louvre Museum as a staff worker in 1927, rising to deputy curator of paintings in 1930, still only 24. In 1932, Jean Mistler (1897-1988), then the French Assistant Secretary of State for Fine Arts and the future secretary of the Académie française, appointed him to a cabinet position. As president of the Committee of National Museums, he led an extensive international inquiry between 1933 and 1934 to protect works of art from the mounting threat of war. He edited several art periodicals, l'Amour de l'Art and Quadrige. His book Histoire de l'Art contemporain appeared in1935. He was named chief curator of paintings at the Louvre in 1937. Under Huyghe's leadership, younger support scholars such as Charles Sterling (q.v.) developed their skills. The same year, 1937, Curator-in-Chief of the Department of Paintings and Drawings and Professor at the Ecole du Louvre. During World War II, he was in charge of carrying out the evacuation of the paintings from the Louvre. He actively joined the Resistance as first "Etat-Major des groupes Veny du Sud-Ouest." After the war, Huyghe was in charge of rehanging of the Louvre paintings, which he did at once, but hanging them in no particular order, a controversial move at the time and one that was subsequently reversed. Huyghe was appointed professor at the Collége de France in 1950, holding the first chair of Psychology of Visual Arts ("Psychologie des arts plastiques"). Married once before, Huyghe married a second time to a museum curator Lydie Bouthet in 1950. His famous book Dialogue avec le Visible was published 1955. An innovative and early producer of films about art, his film Rubens won a prize at the Venice Film Festival. He was also the founder of the International Federation of Film Art, becoming its president in 1958. He was elected to l'Academie Francaise in 1960 and president of national committee for the Delacroix centennial, 1963. He edited the Larousse art survey series L’art et l’homme, which was subsequently translated into English. Huyghe Chaired the International Commission of UNESCO experts, charged with safeguarding Venice, from 1964-1974. He received the European Erasmus Prize at the Hague in 1966. For the 1967-1968 year he was a Kress scholar in residence at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. Huyghe was named the museum director of the Institut de France, Musee Jaquemart-Andre, Paris in 1974. He retired from the College de France in 1976 and named honorary professor. Toward the end of his life, Huyghe published several books, a psycho-spiritual history of society, with Daisaku Ikeda, Nuit appelle l'aurore. His memoirs appeared in 1994 as Une vie pour l’art: de Léonard à Picasso.
Huyghe employed the methodology of Bergson, once explaining his conception of art as, "what cannot be put directly into words is sensed directly through images and sensations."
HCountry: France
HBiography: Bazin, Germain. Histoire de l'histoire de l'art: de Vasari à nos jours. Paris: Albin Michel, 1986, pp. 321-322; [Academie-francaise index of academicians] http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:ZI7M4_oFUxcJ:www.academie-francaise.fr/immortels/base/academiciens/fiche.asp%3Fparam%3D619+%22Rene+huyghe%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=9&gl=us; Huyghe, René. Une vie pour l’art: de Léonard à Picasso. Paris: Editions de Fallois, 1994;Collége de France, Professeurs disparus [website] http://www.college-de-france.fr/default/EN/all/ins_dis/p1054550108064.htm; Thullier, Jacques. "René Huyghe [obituary:] Eeckhout, Paul. "In memoriam: Rene Huyghe (1906-1997)." Revue Belge d'Archeologie et d'Histoire de l'Art 66 (1997): 289-90.
HBibliography: Histoire de l'art contemporain. Volumes 14 and 15 of Amour de l'art. Paris, F. Alcan, 1930-1931; Dialogue avec le visible. Paris: Flammarion 1955, English, Ideas and images in World art: Dialogue with the Visible. New York: Abrams, 1959; L'art et l'âme. Paris: Flammarion, 1960; and Bory, Jean Louis, and Cau, Jean. Delacroix. Paris: Hachette, 1963, English, Delacroix. New York: H.N. Abrams, 1963; L'Art et l'homme [series] 3 vols. 1967, vol. 1: La peinture français au XIXe siècle, vol. 2: La Relève de l'imaginaire,1976, vol. 3: La Relève du réel, 1978; Un Siècle d’art moderne: l’histoire du Salon des indépendants, 1884-1984. Paris: Denoël, 1984; Les signes du temps et l'art moderne. Paris: Flammarion, 1985; and Ikeda, Daisaku. Nuit appelle l'aurore. English, Dawn after Dark. New York: Weatherhill, 1991.