The great-grandson of the orientalist painter Henri Emilien Rousseau, I was bathed in the Mediterranean light of his heady paintings, where a vibrant admiration for the grandeur of the Maghreb and a very Virgilian tenderness for the landscapes of Aix are expressed.

After studying literature and history, through which I developed a taste for the life of the mind, my first professional career as an artillery officer gave me many opportunities to be immersed in foreign cultures which, from Lebanon to the Ivory Coast via Mozambique and the Pacific, deepened my curiosity and satisfied my love of beauty.

These eight years in the armed forces gave way in 2010 to a second career dedicated to culture in all its forms. First, as director of the Abbayes du Sud Vendée, owned by the Department of Vendée, I wrote and staged plays (Les Balades d’Aliénor…), programmed music festivals (La Voix de Noël…), and produced sound-and-light shows (Maillezais, Lumière du Marais) and other large-scale public events.

In 2012, I joined the company Culturespaces, a leading private operator in the management and promotion of cultural projects. Alongside Bruno Monnier, Founder and President of Culturespaces, I directed the Carrières de Lumière, a famous site dedicated to temporary exhibitions on painting through vast immersive projections. I then took the directorship of the Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild and the Villa Kérylos, where I embraced the art of gardens — and the art of making them loved and discovered through successful events (La Fête des Roses, Les Nocturnes de la Villa).

Finally, Bruno Monnier entrusted me with the direction of the Caumont Centre d’Art, where a programme of magnificent exhibitions of painting and sculpture, set within a restored and sumptuously decorated mansion, made it the most visited museum in the South-East of France.