Cécile Debray has been director of the Musée de l’Orangerie since 2017. From 2008 to 2017, she was head curator in charge of modern collections at the Musée National d’Art Moderne/Centre Pompidou. Before that, she was scientific and cultural adviser to the general administrator of the Réunion des Musées Nationaux (2006-2008) and curator at the Musée d’Art Moderne of the City of Paris (2001-2005).

She has curated many exhibitions, including elles@centrepompidou (2009, with Camille Morineau), Matisse. Paires et séries (Centre Pompidou, 2012) and Marcel Duchamp. La peinture, même (Centre Pompidou, 2014). Recent exhibitions include Le modèle noir de Géricault à Matisse (Musée d’Orsay, 2019) and Les contes cruels de Paula Rego (Musée de l’Orangerie, 2018-2019).

An art historian, she has published essays and works on historical avant-garde movements (Le Fauvisme, Citadelles & Mazenod, 2014; Matisse, Centre Pompidou, 2012; La Section d’or, éditions Cercle d’Art, 2000; Togores et le Noucentisme espagnol, éditions Cercle d’art, 1998) and on painting since 1945.

• Publication: Van Gogh – Duchamp: Oil and Water?, symposium proceedings, 2021