French art historian (1937–2020)
Alain Erlande-Brandenburg (2 August 1937 in Luxeuil (Haute-Saône) – 6 June 2020, Paris) was a French art historian and honorary general curator for heritage, a specialist on Gothic and Romanesque art.
Early life.
Erlande-Brandenburg was son of the physician Gilbert Brandenburg and grandson of writer and poet Albert-Jacques Brandenburg. He attended school in Marseille at the lycée Saint-Charles et Thiers, then entered the Lycée Henri-IV to prepare the later study at the École Nationale des Chartes, from where he graduated as an archivist-palaeographer in 1964. He also studied at the École du Louvre, where he received his doctorate in 1971. Theses in 1964 at the École des Chartes (on French royal funerals and tombs) and in 1965 at the École du Louvre (on funerary statues) culminated in a dissertation at the École pratique des hautes études on the royal tombs at the Basilica of Saint-Denis, published in 1975.
Career.
He was chief curator of the Musée de Cluny (Musée national du Moyen Âge) since 1967, chief conservator and director of the National Museum of the Renaissance in Château d'Écouen from 1980 to 1987, of which he was a founder, and assistant to the director of the Musées de France from 1987 to 1991. He became director of the Musée de Cluny from 1991 to 1994 and director of Museum of the Renaissance from 1999 to 2005. He was also director of studies at the École pratique des hautes études (4th section) from 1974 to 2005. He taught as a professor of medieval architecture at the École de Chaillot and museology at the École du Louvre. From 1991 to 2000 he was professor of medieval archaeology and art history at the École des Chartes. From 1994 to 1998 he was director of the Archives nationales de France.
Brandenburg was Inspector General of French museums in 1988 and president of the Société française d'archéologie from 1985 to 1994. He has gained an international reputation for a number of important publications on the Gothic era, notably an enlightening work on the new conception of the history of art——published in 1989.
References.
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