Thuillier, Jacques

Date born: 1928

Place born: Vaucouleurs, Meuse, France

Date died:

Place died:

Poussin and 17th-century French art scholar. Thuillier's parents were André Thuiller, a professor, and Berthe Caritey (Thuillier). He studied at the École normale superieure, Paris, graduating from the University of Paris in1954. He received a fellowship at Fondation Primoli, Rome, for the 1955 year, and the Foundation Thiers, Paris, for 1956. That year he joined the Centre national de la recherche scientifique, Paris. In 1959 he was appointed to the Universite de Paris, Sorbonne, as an assistant professor of art. He was involved the 1960 Poussin exhibition in France which instituted the long-running debate about the chronology and authenticity of the early works of that artist. The show, launched by Michel Laclotte (q.v.), and assisted by Germain Bazin (q.v.), Charles Sterling (q.v.), René Varin and Jacques Dupont (q.v.) set a debate among Poussin scholars which Thuillier would join. In 1962 he joined the Université de Dijon. Together with Jennifer Montagu, he launched the Charles Le Brun exhibition in1963 at the Musée national de Versailles. His book on Marie de Medici appeared in Italian in 1967, French in 1969 and in English as Rubens' Life of Marie de' Medici in 1970. The same year he was named professor of the history of modern art (professeur d'histoire de l'art moderne) at the l'Institut d'Art et d'Archeologie of the Sorbonne. He and Pierre Rosenberg (q.v.) launched the Georges de La Tour exhibition in 1972. Thuillier left Dijon in 1973, succeeded by Antoine Schnapper (q.v.). He issued his catalogue raisonné on Poussin in 1974. A show on the Les Nains show at the Grand Palais was mounted in 1979. He was again promoted to the chair of art history (professeur et chaire d'histoire de la creation artistique en France), College de France, in 1977. In 1994 he issued a second mongraph on Poussin, followed the following year by a catalog of the Feigen Gallery exhibition of early work of the artist in 1995, considered by Brian Sewell as "essential to all concerned with Poussin studies." He was selected to write the updated volume on European decorative arts from the Spanish-language scholar encyclopedia, Summa artis, historia general del arte series, published in 2000.

Thuillier figured among the important Poussinist scholars of the second half of the twentieth century, Denis Mahon (q.v.) and Blunt.

Home Country: France

Sources: Sewell, Brian. "The Blunt Truth about Poussin?" Evening Standard (London) February 2, 1995, p. 30;

Bibliography: Catalogue de l'Exposition Charles Le Brun. Palais de Versailles, 1963; Le Storie di Maria de' Medici di Rubens al Lussemburgo, Rizzoli, 1967, revised ed., French, Rubens, La Galerie Medicis au Palais du Luxembourg, Rizzoli-Laffont, 1969, English, Rubens' Life of Marie de' Medici, Abrams, 1970; and Rosenberg, Pierre. Catalogue de l'Exposition Georges de La Tour, Flammarion, 1972; Tout l’œuvre peint de Poussin; documentation et catalogue raisonné. Paris: Flammarion, 1974 ; Nicolas Poussin. Paris: Flammarion, 1994; Poussin Before Rome. London: Feigen Gallery, 1995; Las artes decorativas en Europa. Madrid: Espasa Calpe, 2000; Sébastien Bourdon, 1616-1671: catalogue critique et chronologique de l'oeuvre complet. Paris: Réunion des musées nationaux, 2000.