Guy Cogeval

Guy Cogeval has been director of The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts since 1998. In this position, he is responsible for artistic leadership and executive management of one of Canada’s oldest and most distinguished art museums. There, he has curated or overseen such critically acclaimed exhibitions as The Triumph of the Baroque (with the NGA, Washington), Hitchcock and Art (with the Centre Pompidou, Paris), Picasso Érotique (with the Musée Picasso, Paris) and Richelieu: Art and Power (with the Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Cologne).

Prior to becoming director of The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Guy Cogeval was director of the Musée National des monuments français, in Paris (1992–1998), where he was named Conservateur en chef du patrimoine (1996). He was for twelve years professor of art history (nineteenth century) at the École du Louvre. Previous positions include curator in the education department at the Musée du Louvre, curator at the Musée des beaux-arts de Lyon, and curator-in-training at the Musée d’Orsay. Earlier, he was awarded a fellowship at the Académie de France à Rome, Villa Medici (1982–1984), where he was a Prix de Rome scholar.

During his years in France, Mr. Cogeval was curator of varied exhibitions, such as Debussy e il simbolismo (Rome), A New 19th Century (Brooklyn, New York, and Dallas), Vuillard (Lyon, Barcelona), Maurice Denis: A Retrospective (Lyon, Amsterdam, Cologne) and Renaissance Architecture (Paris).

In 2001, Guy Cogeval was awarded a medal of honor--Les insignes de chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres de la République française--by the government of France. He studied art history at the Sorbonne, Paris, where he received his M.A. in 1981 and continued in the doctoral program until 1985. In 1985, he was awarded first place in the highly prestigious Concours des conservateurs des musées nationaux de France.

General Information

The National Gallery of Art and its Sculpture Garden are at all times free to the public. They are located on the National Mall between 3rd and 9th Streets at Constitution Avenue NW, and are open Monday through Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and Sunday from 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. The Gallery is closed on December 25 and January 1. For information call (202) 737-4215 or the Telecommunications Device for the Deaf (TDD) at (202) 842-6176, or visit the Gallery's Web site at www.nga.gov. The Gallery is now on Facebook—become a fan at www.facebook.com/NationalGalleryofArt.

Visitors will be asked to present all carried items for inspection upon entering the East and West Buildings. Checkrooms are free of charge and located at each entrance. Luggage and other oversized bags must be presented at the 4th Street entrances to the East or West Building to permit x-ray screening and must be deposited in the checkrooms at those entrances. For the safety of visitors and the works of art, nothing may be carried into the Gallery on a visitor's back. Any bag or other items that cannot be carried reasonably and safely in some other manner must be left in the checkrooms. Items larger than 17 x 26 inches cannot be accepted by the Gallery or its checkrooms.

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