Quick Facts
Biography
- Not to be confused with archaeologist and anthropologist Marc Meyer.
Marc Mayer (born 1956) is a Canadian arts manager and curator, who was named the director of the National Gallery of Canada on December 8, 2008.
Prior to his appointment, he served as director of the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal (2004–2008) and the Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery in Toronto (1998–2001), as well as deputy director at the Brooklyn Museum in New York City (2001–2004) and curator of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo (1994–1998). In Paris he was Head of Visual Arts with the Cultural Services of the Canadian Embassy and was a correspondent for the New York periodical Rizzoli’s The Journal of Art (1990 to 1993). In 1986 he began his career when named Assistant to the Director and later Assistant Director of the 49th Parallel Centre for Contemporary Canadian Art in New York (1986 to 1990).
Mayer was born and raised in a Franco-Ontarian family in Sudbury, Ontario, where his father Gil worked in advertising sales for local television and radio stations, ran as a Liberal candidate in Nickel Belt in the 1974 federal election, and recorded comedic commentaries for CKSO-TV under the pseudonym "Marcel Mucker".
Openly gay, he holds a degree in art history from McGill University.