The honorary general curator of heritage Germain Viatte, who accompanied the first steps of the Center Pompidou and the Quai Branly, died at the age of 84, the two Parisian museums announced on Saturday.
The museum of primitive arts wanted by former president Jacques Chirac expressed its “deep emotion and (its) immense sadness” to learn of the disappearance of the man who was director of the museological project from 1997 to 2006, adding that Germain Viatte played “a decisive role”.
We also owe him “the Palais des Colonies”, a magnificent work on the former Museum of African and Oceanian Arts (MAAO) at Porte-Dorée which housed the collections before they joined the Quai Branly, under his direction.
“With the death of Germain Viatte, the art world loses one of its most significant figures and the Center Pompidou, not only a great director of the National Museum of Modern Art, but also one of its founders », added the president of the Center Pompidou, Laurent Le Bon, in a press release.
He was director of contemporary documentation, then director from 1992 to 1997.
Previously, in 1985, he was tasked by Gaston Defferre, then mayor of Marseille, with creating the direction of museums in the Marseille city. He thus became the architect of the creation of the Vieille Charité museum of African, Oceanian and Amerindian arts.