Philippe Stern

Philippe Stern (11 April 1895 – 4 April 1979) was a French art historian specialising in Indian and Southeast Asian art, particularly from the Khmer Empire and Champa. He taught Indian and Southeast Asian art at the École du Louvre from 1929 to 1965 and was chief curator of the Guimet Museum in Paris from 1953 to 1965.

Biography

Stern first studied philosophy with Émile Chartier (Alain), then musicology and composition, before turning his attention to Indian and Khmer cultures. From 1921, he worked as an assistant at the Guimet Museum (Musée Guimet), and from 1925 as a curator at the Indochina Museum (Musée indochinois) in the Trocadéro Palace. At the École pratique des hautes études (EPHE) he completed his thesis on the Bayon of Angkor Thom and the development of Khmer art in 1927, which was considered groundbreaking for this field of study. George Cœdès wrote that with this work, "the study of Khmer archaeology has entered a new phase". Stern credited Cœdès as well as Joseph Hackin (director of the Musée Guimet) and Henri Parmentier (director of the archaeological service of the École française d'Extrême-Orient), as his principal academic patrons.

In the same year, he was appointed associate curator at the Guimet Museum. Together with Hubert Pernot, Stern set up the joint music library of the Paris Museum of Speech and Gesture (Musée de la parole et du geste) and the Guimet Museum in 1928.

After the liberation of France in 1944, he married the photographer Thérèse le Prat (1895-1966), who was known for her pictures of Southeast Asia and Oceania. Following the death of René Grousset, Stern took over as chief curator of the Guimet Museum in 1953.

Selected works

Co-authored with Mireille Bénisti.