New Orleans Museum of Art Director Susan M. Taylor has been awarded France’s highest accolade, the Legion of Honor, for her work in strengthening the bonds between New Orleans and France.
The National Order of the Legion of Honor was started by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1802 and is the country’s highest award for both military members and civilians.
“It symbolizes the gratitude of the French Republic for a life marked by excellence, dedication, and a profound attachment to the universal ideals it upholds,” Consul General of France in Louisiana Rodolphe Sambou said in a statement.
Sambou awarded Taylor in a ceremony at the museum last week, a distinction she can add to her list of awards that includes the French Ministry of Culture’s rank of Officier within the Order of Arts and Letters.
“There are longstanding cultural connections between New Orleans and France,” Taylor said in a statement. “At NOMA, we are committed to celebrating the global from the unique vantage point of our city.”
In 2022, Taylor welcomed French President Emmanuel Macron to the museum during his official visit to the Crescent City.
Earlier this year, she oversaw the opening of the first exhibit produced through an artist residency with the French Embassy’s Villa Albertine program, which partners with French and American higher education institutions to promote French language and culture. The exhibit titled “Nicolas Floc’h: Fleuves-Océan, Mississippi Watershed” features “vibrant monochromatic photographs of the color of water made under the surface with dramatic black-and-white landscape photographs made along the banks of the Mississippi and its tributaries.”
For the city’s tricentennial in 2018, she also oversaw The Orléans Collection, which for the first time brought together 40 European masterpieces from from the collection of New Orleans’ namesake, Philippe II, Duc d’Orléans.
And in 2013, Taylor visited artists’ studios in Paris for the installation “Cities of Ys” by Camille Henrot, thanks to an Étant donnés grant sponsored by the Cultural Services of the French Embassy.
Taylor has been NOMA’s director since 2010, and has focused on education for families and children, along with community building. She has also led major capital projects, and in 2019 the museum doubled the size of the Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden, which hosted the museum’s annual fundraiser last week.
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