Conference
Writing and Rewriting the Golden Age
Tuesday, May 5, 2026Conference presented by Guillaume Kientz
By the end of the Renaissance, Spain was already aware that it was living through an exceptional era, a Golden Age. Famous and celebrated in its own time, rediscovered and revered in the 19th century, criticized and sometimes demonized in the 20th and 21st centuries, the “Siglo de Oro” has never ceased to fascinate and to be rewritten. Is the history of the Golden Age not, above all, a story that tells us something?
Speaker presentation
Guillaume Kientz
Guillaume Kientz currently serves as the Director and CEO of the Hispanic Society Museum & Library (HSM&L) and is spearheading the museum’s restoration and renovation efforts to bring the historic institution into the present day. An accomplished Art Historian and Curator, Kientz does not have the typical background of one in this profession. Rather than focusing his efforts singularly on university studies, Kientz dedicated much time to experiencing cultural institutions firsthand, traveling the world and discovering interesting objects and cultures. His unique background has given him the perspective of the visitor, using this viewpoint to approach the curation of exhibitions through the lens of the institution’s audience, making the visitor his top priority.
Kientz is a specialist in Spanish painting, and in particular the works of El Greco, Velazquez, Ribera and Goya, as well as in European Caravaggism. At the Louvre, where he served as a curator in the Department of Paintings for eight years with a focus on Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American painting, Kientz developed the revered exhibition « Le Mexique au Louvre.Chefs-d’œuvre de la Nouvelle Espagne, XVII–XVIIIe » in 2013, bringing Mexican masterpieces to the spotlight for the first time in the institution’s history.
He is also recognized for the acclaimed exhibition Velázquez, shown at the Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, Paris, in 2015, and has co-curated significant exhibitions including Ribera à Rome, held in 2014 at the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rennes and then later Musée des Beaux-Arts, Strasbourg. More recently, Kientz co-curated the first comprehensive retrospective devoted to the Spanish Renaissance master El Greco, shown at the Grand Palais, Paris, in October 2019 before it moved to the Art Institute of Chicago in 2020.
Kientz has pursued research and earned degrees in political science from l’Institut d’Études Politiques (IEP) de Strasbourg and a Masters in Art History from Université Marc Bloc in Strasbourg. Following his graduation from the Institut National du Patrimoine, Paris, in 2008, he joined the Regional Direction of Cultural Affairs of Auvergne, France, where he oversaw the preservation of historic monuments and buildings, before his appointment to the Louvre in 2010. His current research focuses on early 17th-century European painting, with an emphasis on artists in the circle of Caravaggio. Most recently, Kientz served as curator of European Art at the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas before joining his current position as CEO and Director of the HSM&L in March 2021.
Kientz is the recipient of top industry honors and awards, including the Daniel Arasse Fellowship from Villa Medici, and regularly contributes articles and sections to the most important industry catalogues, publications and reviews. He is proficient in many languages including French, English, Spanish, Italian, German (speaking, reading, and writing), Dutch and Portuguese (reading).