NEW YORK.- On June 19, Elizabeth W. Easton will receive the insignia of chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters. Guy Cogeval, president of the Musée d’Orsay, will confer the medal on Ms. Easton at the Cultural Services of the French Embassy.

Elizabeth W. Easton is the co-founder and director of the Center for Curatorial Leadership (CCL), an organization founded in 2007 that trains curators for leadership positions. A keen devotee of French Impressionism and Post Impressionism, she earned her Ph.D. at Yale University with a dissertation on Edouard Vuillard's interiors, and organized several French-themed exhibits as the Chair of the Department of European Painting and Sculpture at the Brooklyn Museum (including The Intimate Eye of Edouard Vuillard; Frederic Bazille: Prophet of Impressionism; and Monet and the Mediterranean). Ms. Easton has written numerous articles and essays for exhibition catalogues and a variety of art journals, and has given lectures across the country and abroad on such topics as "Degas and the Artist as Frame Designer" and "Transcending the Easel: Vuillard and Photography."

The Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Order of Arts and Letters) was created in 1957 to recognize eminent artists and writers, as well as individuals who have contributed to the recognition of French culture in the world. The Order is given out twice annually to only a few hundred people worldwide. Among the Americans who have received this award are Paul Auster, Ornette Coleman, Agnes Gund, Marilyn Horne, Jim Jarmusch, Richard Meier, Robert Paxton, Robert Redford, Meryl Streep and Uma Thurman.