Hulten, Pontus

Hulten, Pontus (1924– ). Swedish art historian and administrator, whose international career has been largely concerned with the founding of major collections of modern art. He was born in Stockholm and studied at the universities of Copenhagen and Stockholm. In 1958 Hulten was appointed director of the Moderna Museet, Stockholm, and in 1973 he became director of the Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paris, in which role he supervised the inauguration of the Pompidou Centre; in 1981 he was described in the International Herald Tribune as ‘a big man fond of jokes … a playful porpoise among the stuffed whales of the French cultural establishment'. From 1981 to 1982 Hulten was first director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and from 1981 to 1993 he was first director of the Palazzo Grassi, Venice, a centre for temporary exhibitions, largely sponsored by the car firm Fiat. In 1990 he became chief administrative officer of the newly established Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Art and Exhibition Hall of the German Federal Republic) in Bonn, and he is also director of the Jean Tinguely museum in Basle. Hulten has organized numerous major exhibitions in his varied roles, including ‘Paris-New York’ (1977), the first of a series of blockbusters at the Pompidou Centre in which Paris was linked with other great art centres, and ‘Futurism and Futurisms’ (1986), the inaugural show of the Palazzo Grassi and the largest Futurist exhibition ever held. In an article entitled ‘Europe's Hottest Curators’ in the March 1988 issue of Art News, Brigid Grauman described Hulten as ‘perhaps the most brilliant of the curators who, over the years, have channelled a new enthusiasm for contemporary art'.