Person

Dupierreux, Richard

• Dupierreux, Richard Rémi Georges

1891-1957

Richard Dupierreux was born in Couillet, Belgium, in 1891. He obtained a PhD in law from the University of Brussels in 1914 and went on to practice as a lawyer at the Brussels Court of Appeal. Between 1915 and 1918, he served as Jules Destrée’s private secretary during the latter’s missions to Italy and Russia. When Destrée became the Belgian Minister of Arts and Sciences, Dupierreux became his chief of staff between November 1919 and November 1921. In addition to this work, he pursued literary and journalistic activities in Belgium. Between 1920 and 1923, for instance, he directed the foreign policy section of La Nation. He also served as President of the Belgian Foreign Press Union from 1921 until 1923, and lead the arts, literary, and theatre section at the Le Soir, where he worked under the pseudonym Casimir. At the same time, he taught art history and civilisational history at the Institut supérier des Beaux-Arts in Antwerp. He died in 1957, having been elected to the Belgian Royal Academy the preceding year.

In the Fall of 1924, when Jules Destrée was considering creating a press section at the IIIC, he intended his collaborator Dupierreux to be head of the unit. In fact he became Chief of the Section for artistic relations in November 1925, and resigned from this position in December 1929. During this period, he served as Secretary of the Belgian Committee of Intellectual Cooperation which had been founded at the initiative of Destrée in 1922. Dupierreux was also involved in the International Museums Office’s (IMO) activities: he was a member of the preliminary committee in charge of the IMO’s first steps in autumn 1926 alongside Destrée, Henri Focillon, Julien Luchaire, George Oprescu, and Hélène Vacaresco. Between 1927–1929, he became coordinator at the IMO, before leaving the path to Euripide Foundoukidis who became Secretary-General of the Organisation in 1931. In 1937, Dupierreux helped with the preparation of the Belgian delegation to the second Conferences of National Committees of Intellectual Cooperation, organised by the IIIC, together with the Belgian Secretary-General of education Marcel Nyns and the president of the Belgian Committee Paul Hymans.

Created by Marie Caillot 28/10/2011. English translation by Jan Stöckmann 11-08-2015.

• UNESCO Archives, Archival Group 1: boîte 33. IICI. A. IV. 28. 15. Richard Dupierreux [dossier de personnel]. (1924-1929). 50 pièces.
• UNESCO Archives, Archival Group 1 : boîte 28. IICI. A. III. 56. (3). Lettre de Richard Dupierreux à Daniel Secrétan, secrétaire de la SDN, datée du 25 janvier 1937.
• UNESCO Archives, Archival Group 1 : CICI/461. Organisation de Coopération intellectuelle, "Les Commissions nationales de Coopération intellectuelle", Genève 1937, "Belgique", p.24.
• Lavachéry, H. "Notice sur Richard Dupierreux, membre de l'Académie" in Académie royale des sciences, des lettres et des beaux-arts de Belgique. Bruxelles : Palais des Académies, 1964. 10 pages.
• Caillot, M. (2011). La revue Mouseion (1927-1946). Les musées et la coopération culturelle internationale. Thèse d’Ecole des chartes. P. 29, 35, 56-57, 64, 66, 78-79, 127, 140, 142-143, 151 (tome 1). P. 120-121 (tome 2). Résumé de thèse : http://theses.enc.sorbonne.fr/2011/caillot Accessed 28 October 2011.
• "Richard Dupierreux". Notice d’autorité de la Bibliothèque nationale de France. Retrieved from: http://catalogue.bnf.fr/servlet/autorite?ID=13187360&idNoeud=1.1&host=catalogue Accessed 28 October 2011.