FLORISOONE Michel (EN)

Michel Florisoone, was a French art critic, historian of art and museum curator. He was a main actor of artistic recuperation after the Liberation.

An art critic and historian at the Louvre

Michel Florisoone (Michel Louis Marie Florisoone), was born 7 October 1904 in Amiens, the son of Marie-Élisabeth Laflèche (1876-1945) and Charles Félix Florisoone (1864-1930), history professor at lycée Henri-IV, later at lycée Janson-de-Sailly. In 1925, he was a reserve soldier in the 133^rd regiment, 14^thescadron du train (transport and supplies squadron) in Lyon.¹ In 1934, he married Louise Françoise Andry (1892-1946), employee at the Seine prefecture. After the death of his wife in 1946, he married Claude Marchal, with whom he had two sons.

During the interwar period, Michel Florisoone was known for his prolific output as an art critic: he published in reviews such as the Bulletin des musées de France, L’Art et les Artistes (of which he was assistant editor), Marianne, L’Art et les Archives, La Revue politique et littéraire, Beaux-Arts and L’Amour de l’art, which he co-directed with Germain Bazin and René Huyghe. He also collaborated on the collection “Trésors de la peinture française” (Albert Skira) alongside prestigious names such as Henri Focillon, Louis Réau, Paul Valéry, Pierre Francastel, Louis Hautecœur ou André Lhote. His work led to exchanges with foreign curators and universities, such as Dr Hugo Kebher (1876-1967) of the Kunsthistorischen Seminars der Universität, Munich.² In the 1930s he attended all gatherings of important personalities in the arts – dinners, vernissages and events, notably those organized by the Syndicat de la presse artistique française and the Association française d’action artistique.³

In 1936, Michel Florisoone entered the Painting department of the Louvre museum in charge of a particular mission and became the assistant of Rene Huyghe.⁴ Together, and with the aid of Albert Henraux (1881-1953), then president of the Société des amis du Louvre (1932-1953), they worked on the vast exhibit “La vie et l’œuvre de Vincent van Gogh,” organized in the palais de Tokyo for the 1937 World Fair.⁵ That same year, Michel Florisoone published a 3-volume biography of Van Gogh, for which the Académie française awarded him the Charles Blanc prize in July 1938.

When France entered the war in 1939, Michel Florisoone, then 35, was enlisted in the army with the rank of lieutenant, before resuming his post at the Louvre at an unspecified date. During that period, he remained in contact with his fellow curators at the museum, namely René Huyghe and Germain Bazin, in charge of several of the Louvre’s provincial depots where artworks had been evacuated.⁶ The war did not seem to hinder the activity of L’Amour de l’art, since in the autumn of 1939, René Huyghe decided to continue publication of the review. In November, Michel Florisoone wrote to him, by way of approval:

“A war of this kind that inspires hardly any exaltation or heroism risks dire consequences for mankind […] In a few weeks, boredom and mindlessness will engulf the average man – go-getters will have fun splashing about in the mud. The newspapers are already talking nonsense and sounding hollow: the refuge of stupidity and bestiality is not far off; and civilization risks exiting terribly weakened from this war for civilization. Therefore, the review is necessary.”⁷

Despite this initiative in favor of cultural activity, the Louvre museum was functioning slow motion. In the absence of his colleagues, Michel Florisoone dealt with everyday affairs in the Painting department. The installation of the Vichy regime in the summer of 1940 led to changes in the higher ranks of civil servants and, by the decision of 20 December 1940, Michel Florisoone was named head of the artistic action service abroad, replacing Philippe Erlanger, dismissed.⁸ Set up in the Palais de Chaillot, the service notably supervised the movements of French artists abroad, only allowed with an authorization signed by the Beaux-Arts general director after declaration of dates and the itinerary of the tour. Michel Florisoone seems to have had the dual responsibility for this service and that of the Painting department, doubtless unofficially and thanks to the confidence of René Huyghe.  

Michel Florisoone’s activities during the war are little known. His publications, numerous before the war, were reduced to practically nothing. In 1952 there was Un an de théâtre, 1940-1941, an inventory of the theatrical year 1940-41 in Paris and the free zone, in collaboration with the journalist and art critic Raymond Congniat and illustrations by the painter Yves Bonnat.⁹ In 1943, he wrote the texts for a catalog around the works of the painter Jean Dries (1905-1973) published by the galerie Durand-Ruel.

A curator in the service of artistic recuperation in France

After the surrender of Nazi Germany, artistic recuperation was organized to find French   cultural property that had been looted or had disappeared during the Occupation. Among the members of the Commission de récuperation artistique (CRA) created for that purpose was Michel Florisoone (decree of 28 December 1944). As of 10 February 1945,¹ he became head of administrative services until the 1st of January 1949, the end of his detachment from the Musées nationaux. The post was then suppressed and replaced by that of technical advisor, which he also assured, allowing him to participate in the investigations and negotiations involved in numerous affairs of looted property and works of French origin, sometimes several years after the official end of artistic recuperation.²

These different functions led him to carry on continued correspondence with Rose Valland, then head of the Service de remise en place des œuvres d’art (SRPOA, Service for the return of art works) in Berlin, as well as with the numerous antennae of artistic recuperation in Germany. The archives of the CRA,³ in particular the dossiers of the Bureau d’investigation artistique (BIA) and the American National Archives conserve the memory of his action, in particular the correspondence exchanged with his American counterparts such as Richard F. Howard, head of the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives (MFA&A) program, and Thomas C. Howe Jr., cultural affairs advisor at the Central Collecting Point in Wiesbaden.⁴ Although his action was limited to France, he often met with officers of the MFA&A, such as Major Mason Hammond when he came to Versailles in May1945.⁵ Rose Valland introduced Michel Florisoone as a “habitué of international cultural exchanges thanks to a period of several years at the Quai d’Orsay.”⁶

During that period Michel Florisoone wrote several publications and reports, important for their description of the CRA’s organization, its actions and results. Thus, as of 1946, the exhibition organized at the Musée de l’Orangerie presented Les Chefs-d’œuvre des collections privées françaises retrouvés en Allemagne par la Commission de récupération artistique et les services alliés (Masterpieces from Private French Collections found in Germany by the Artistic Recuperation Commission and Allied Services). Alongside the curator Carle Dreyfus (1875-1952) and the archivist-palaeographer Jeanine Lemoine-Delgove (1917-2017), Michel Florisoone wrote the catalog texts on paintings and drawings.⁷ He also authored the closing report of the CRA, often quoted as a reference when clarification is needed for the four years that artistic recuperation officially lasted, and after which the question arose of what should be done with the artworks whose owners had not been identified.⁸ The Commission de choix de la récuperation artistique, active from 1949-1953 would decide which objects would be sold by the Domains administration and what books and artworks would be distributed among French libraries and museums. Michel Florisoone was named secretary of the Commission before being replaced by Rose Valland. His important functions in that huge undertaking did not prevent him from taking on new activities: in 1944, he was attributed the Chair of foreign painting in the École du Louvre, for which he was aided between 1945-1955 by art historian Adeline Hulftegger (1913-1962).⁹

Having also become curator in 1947, he was quickly appointed to the Louvre in August 1948, thanks to the support of his colleague and friend René Huyghe. Thus followed a period of large-scale exhibitions, devoted among others to Jacques-Louis David,¹⁰ Léonard de Vinci,¹¹ and Toulouse-Lautrec,¹² in 1951.

Postwar attacks and promotions

Aside from artistic recuperation, the end of the war opened the way to a cleansing of the art market, carried out in particular by the Commission nationale interprofessionnelle d’épuration. Some eighty art dealers were investigated and/or brought to court for affairs during the war. Although Michel Florisoone did not actively take part in this process, members of the CRA were often asked to contribute testimony or expertise in certain dossiers, and it is interesting to note that the art market and its practices were hardly unknown to Michel Florisoone.

In that context, during the 1945 Salon de mai, in the review Arts, he attacked the strategy of certain art dealers who bought the whole of the production of young painters, thus preventing them from taking part in large-scale national and international exhibits. The article pointed notably to the avant-garde painters Maurice Estève, Jean Bazaine and Charles Lapicque, whose gallerist, Louis Carré, was their exclusive representative. Michel Florisoone denounced such “leonine” engagements, which prevented the new generation of French artists from gaining recognition abroad.¹ In answer to that direct attack on his “rapaciousness,”² the owner of the well-known gallery located 10, avenue de Messine, sued Michel Florisoone for 100,000 francs damages before the 3^rd chamber of the Seine civil court, “claiming that the critic was biased and that his article was detrimental to commercial ideals and interests.”³

During a discussion with his lawyer (its content not recorded in the archives), Maître Pierre Loewel, Michel Florisoone indicated who was actually being targeted through him, and why:

“[…] doesn’t attack [Gaston] Diehl or [Bernard] Dorival, who have published articles in the same sense as mine, or even exhibition organizers. Carré thought I was the most vulnerable and at the same time, he wanted to reach official personalities, thanks to my position in the press and my being a quasi-functionary in the administration of the arts. Moreover, Carré didn’t hide the fact that in pointing to me he had several higher-ups in mind. […] you can see what Carré’s victory would mean for the press and future exhibits abroad. What is necessary is an overall defense against the unacceptable pretention of a dealer, and my case must not be lost since it is the first of its kind and would become jurisprudence.”⁴ 

Beginning in the mid 1950s, Michel Florisoone periodically took part in the Advisory committee of the Conseil international des musées as representative for France of the associate members.⁵ He was particularly active on the issue of access to museums: beginning in September 1957, he was responsible for investigating the technical and legal aspects of international measures that would make museums accessible to all.⁶ During the same years he became secretary of the Comité national français de l’ICOM,⁷ all these functions added to that of assistant to the director of French Museums (1956-1960).

By decree of 14 October 1960, Michel Florisoone was named director of the Mobilier national and of the Gobelins and Beauvais manufactures, retaining these functions until 1963.⁸ He was then named director of the Paris museum of African and Oceanic arts housed in the Palais de la Porte-Dorée, ancestor of the Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac museum. It was a time of independence for French colonies, and André Malraux, Cultural Affairs minister, hoped to create a museum in keeping with contemporary issues. The complex restructuring task was given to Michel Florisoone, along with a lack of means that hindered the implementation of the project. That said, the actions he undertook in the domain of museology did not answer to the minister’s expectations: Michel Florisoone seemed indifferent to the contemporary debate associating “primitive arts” with ethnology, and a re-reading of collections through the grid of their intrinsic artistic value, stripped of a colonialist reading, did not sync with Malraux’s ideology. At his death, on 28 June 1973 at the age of 68, he nonetheless left a collection stripped of its “folkloric” artefacts and accompanied by a renewed scientific apparatus.⁹

Michel Florisoone leaves the memory of a prolific art historian and critic as well as an active lecturer throughout France.¹⁰ He was the author of numerous publications, such as Les Grands Maîtres italiens (1952), Les Grandes Périodes de l’histoire de l’art au musée du Louvre (1955), the Dictionnaire des cathédrales de France (1971) and of monographs on famous painters, such as Goya, Delacroix, Manet, Renoir, Chardin, Gauguin and Cézanne. As vice-president of the Association des écrivains catholiques, he was interested in religious art,¹¹ which he wrote about in La Vie catholique and the “Bibliothèque catholique illustrée” (Le Cardinal Dubois, 1929; Le Mont-Saint-Michel, 1929). In 1956, he was awarded the Berlier (sic) prize by the Académie française for his essay Esthétique et mystique.¹²