Julián Zugazagoitia, the director of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City for the last four years, has been given the Order of the Arts and Letters from the Ministry of Culture of France, in recognition of his contributions to the fields of art and literature. Zugazagoitia, who is Mexican, studied at l´École du Louvre and the Sorbonne Paris IV, where he obtained a Doctorate in Philosophy, specializing in aesthetics and Modernism. He became the Executive Director of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in September of 2010, after spending seven years as Director of the Museo del Barrio, New York, presiding over an important renovation of the institution. Zugazagoitia was adjunct director of the Solomon R, Guggenheim Museum (New York), and a curator and consultant for Unesco, the Getty Conservation Institute (Los Angeles), the São Palo Biennial 2002, ARCO 2005, and the Spoleto Festival (Italy). In 2003, Zugazagoitia receive the medal of Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres, also from France's Ministry of Culture.