Bénédicte Savoy is professor of modern art history at Technische Universität Berlin. From 2016 to 2021, she also held a chair at the Collège de France, focusing on the cultural history of European art heritage (18th–20th century). Her research covers museum history, French-German cultural transfer, Nazi-looted art, and postcolonial provenance research.
In 2018, she co-authored the report On the Restitution of African Cultural Heritage with the Senegalese scholar Felwine Sarr, commissioned by French President Emmanuel Macron. Savoy has received numerous awards, including the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize (2016) and the Clark Prize for Excellence in Arts Writing (2024).
She is a member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences, a Knight of the French Legion of Honour, and serves on various boards. Her recent publications include Africa’s Struggle for Its Art and Who Owns Beauty, which received the European Essay Prize in 2025.