She holds a doctorate in art history from La Sorbonne University, where her thesis was devoted to the beginnings of photographic practice associated with the sciences of antiquity in the East. After five years of experience at Christie’s in Paris and London, she began her career as a curator in the Photographs Department of the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles in 2005.
She was then curator of exhibitions at the Musée de l’Elysée in Lausanne from 2011 to 2017. Her exhibition and publication projects cover the history of photography from monographs on Felice Beato, the Nadars, Paul Strand, Irving Penn, Philippe Halsman and Martine Franck to more general studies on portraiture, the Photomaton, the history of the slide, American documentary photography and the emerging international fotografy scene. Anne Lacoste also worked on important photographic archives such as those of the Bibliothèque de l’Institut de France, the iconographic collection of the Canton of Vaud, the Polish graphic artist Wojciech Zamecznik and the artist Jean Dubuffet.