Camille Frasca moves from the Musée Picasso to head Villefranche's Citadelle museums

Selected by a jury on the strength of her proposal, the curator will run the Volti, Goetz-Boumeester and Roux museums, housed in the 16th-century fortress overlooking the harbour.

The museums of Villefranche-sur-Mer have a new director. Camille Frasca was chosen by a jury on the basis of her proposal to head the Citadelle's three museums, the Musée Volti, the Goetz-Boumeester collection and the Musée Roux, Le Journal des Arts reported.

A graduate of Sciences Po Paris and the École du Louvre, she joined the Musée national Picasso-Paris in 2015, where she notably co-curated the exhibition “Picasso à l'image”. She is also a founding member of Diamètre, a collective of exhibition curators.

Her new territory is a monument in its own right. The Saint-Elme citadel was built from 1554 under Emmanuel Philibert of Savoy, to plans by the engineer Gian Maria Olgiati, to protect the harbour. A listed historic monument owned by the town, it now houses the town hall, a conference centre, the museums and an open-air theatre, and is free to visit.

The Citadelle museums are devoted in particular to the sculptor Antoniucci Volti and the painter couple Henri Goetz and Christine Boumeester. For the new director, the challenge will be to bring these collections to a wider audience than passing visitors.