Born in Dijon, France, in 1881, Henri Focillon studied at the Ecole normale supérieure in Paris. After his diploma in classics he succeeded the art historian Emile Bertaux at the literature faculty in Lyon and was appointed director of the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Lyon, a post that he held from 1913 until 1924. In 1924 he succeeded Emile Mâle as chair of medieval art history at the Sorbonne, a post that he held until 1927. In 1933 he began a lecture series at Yale together with art historian Marcel Aubert.

In 1938 he was elected to the Collège de France and he accepted a chair at Yale university. He found himself in the US when the Second World War broke out and decided to stay. In 1940 he became a senior scholar at Harvard and he died in 1943 in New Haven. He published articles in the free French resistance journal, such as “Life of a Nation, 1919–1939” (1941), and his testimony for France, prefaced by General de Gaulle, was published posthumously in 1945.

Focillon played an active role in intellectual cooperation, particularly in the field of museums, popular arts and archeology. A member of the Sub-Committee of Arts and Letters at the IIIC, he proposed the creation of an International Museums Office (IMO) in April 1926. He explained the role that museums can play in the mutual understanding of cultures at the League of Nations (LN) Assembly in July 1926: museums could “facilitate more precise and rich knowledge of other peoples” through art.

When the IMO was created in July 1926, Focillon was a member of the Committee of Directors, a position that he held until July 1927. He thereafter pursued activities at the Sub-Committee of Arts and Letters at the IIIC, and played an important role in organising a congress for popular art in Prague (1928), as well as in the formation of the International Committee of Popular Art in 1929. In 1931 he co-founded together with Paul Valéry the Permanent Committee of Arts and Letters, which succeeded the Sub-Committee of Arts and Letters. In July of the same year, he suggested to the ICIC to create an international centre of institutions of archeology and history of art. This new institution was in fact founded in the same year and published a regular Bulletin.

Focillon remained a member of the Permanent Committee of Arts and Letters until the war, he participated in the publication of the interview and correspondence series by the IIIC during the 1930s which brought together famous intellectuals. In 1939, the IMO published a work on the problem of warheads, in which Focillon wrote an article alongside art historians Jurgis Baltrusaitis and Marcel Aubert.

• UNESCO Archives, Archival Group 1 : IICI / 14/ 26. IICI, Congrès international des Arts populaires. Prague 1928. Paris : IICI, 1928. 140 pages.
• UNESCO Archives, Archival Group 1 : IICI / 01/ A. IICI, La Coopération intellectuelle, n°15 juin 1929, p. 745.
• UNESCO Archives, Archival Group 1 : IICI. Boîte 529. IICI-CICI. Sous-Commission des Lettres et des Arts. LA/17 et LA/35.
• UNESCO Archives, Archival Group 1 : IICI, "Bulletin de la Coopération intellectuelle", n°3, mars 1931, p. 105.
• UNESCO Archives, Archival Group 1 : IICI/ 01. "Première session du Comité permanent des Lettres et des Arts. Les Arts et les Lettres à la Société des Nations. Propositions de MM. Paul Valéry et Henri Focillon". Supplément au n°7-8 du Bulletin de la Coopération intellectuelle. Paris : IICI, 1931. 51 pages.
• UNESCO Archives, Archival Group 1 : IICI/2/1. IICI, Entretiens sur Goethe à l'occasion du centenaire de sa mort. Paris : IICI, 1932. P. 86-88, 121-129, 134-136, 183-187.
• UNESCO Archives, Archival Group 1 : IICI/3/1. IICI, Pour une Société des Esprits. Paris : IICI, 1933. (Introduction de Paul Valéry et Henri Focillon). P. 11-21.
• UNESCO Archives, Archival Group 1 : IICI/2/3. IICI, L'Avenir de l'esprit européen. Paris : IICI, 1934. P. 145.
• UNESCO Archives, Archival Group 1 : IICI/3/4. IICI, Civilisations. Orient-Occident, Génie du nord-Latinité. Paris : IICI, 1934. (Réponse de Henri Focillon à Josef Strzygowski). P. 131-165.
• UNESCO Archives, Archival Group 1 : IICI/2/4. IICI, L'Art et la réalité. L'Art et l'Etat. Paris : IICI, 1935. P. 58, 231, 265, 292, 310-313, 325.
• UNESCO Archives, Archival Group 1 : IICI/2/8. IICI, Le Destin prochain des lettres. Paris : IICI, 1938. P. 111-112, 113, 146-149, 168-169, 172-173, 190-193.
• UNESCO Archives, Archival Group 1 : IICI/14/21. IICI-OIM. Le Problème de l’ogive. Paris : IICI, coll. "Recherche", n°1, 1939. P. 5-28.
• UNESCO Archives, Archival Group 1 : IICI/01. La Coopération intellectuelle internationale, n° spécial, octobre-novembre 1945. "Hommage à Henri Focillon", p. 9-11.
• Bibliothèque nationale de France. "Henri Focillon" (notice d’autorité). Retrieved from http://catalogue.bnf.fr/servlet/autorite?ID=11902990&idNoeud=1.1&host=catalogue Accessed 21 October 2011.
• Dictionary of Art Historians. "Henri Focillon". Retrieved from http://www.dictionaryofarthistorians.org/focillonh.htm Accessed 21 October 2011.
• Bertrand-Dorléac, F. "L’histoire de l’art ou l’éloge de la faiblesse" in Pellistrandri, B. Sirinelli, J.-F. (dir) (2008). L'Histoire culturelle en France et en Espagne. Madrid : Casa de Velázquez. P. 79-80.
• Briend, C. Thomine, A. (dir.) (2004). La Vie des formes : Henri Focillon et les arts. Gand : Schnœck. P. 284 et sqq.
• Caillot, M. (2011). La revue Mouseion (1927-1946). Les musées et la coopération culturelle internationale. Thèse d’Ecole des chartes. P. 13, 26-29, 37-38, 41, 72 (tome 1). P. 121 (tome 2). Résumé de thèse : http://theses.enc.sorbonne.fr/2011/caillot Accessed 21 October 2011.
• Charle, C. (1986). Les Professeurs de la Faculté des lettres de Paris : dictionnaire biographique, 1909-1939. Paris : éd. du CNRS, tome 2.
• Wat, P. (dir.) (2007). Henri Focillon. Paris : Kimé. 226 pages.