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Wednesday, 03 April 2013 18:18

Louvre Names New Director

The Louvre has been on the hunt for a director since the current chief, Henry Loyrette, announced his resignation in December 2012. Today, April 3, 2013, French President Francois Hollande announced his decision to appoint Jean-Luc Martinez, a French specialist in Greek, Roman, and Etruscan antiquities, as the museum’s new director.

Martinez, who has worked with the Louvre since 2007, is currently helming the restoration of the museum’s famed sculpture Winged Victory of Samothrace. He has participated in a number of other projects at the museum including the creation of the Louvre’s outpost in the French city of Lens as well as the museum’s expansion in Abu Dhabi.

Martinez, 49, has signed on for a three-year term and will take over operations in mid-April. Loyrette, who has been the Louvre’s director for 12 years, leaves behind a lasting legacy. During his time at the museum Loyrette nearly doubled the Louvre’s annual attendance. By the end of 2012, approximately 10 million people were visiting the museum each year, making it the busiest museum in the world. Loyrette also implemented the museum’s contemporary art program, employed a policy that relied on crowed-sourced fundraising, and launched a number of successful public campaigns.

The search for a new chief was extensive; for the first time in the museum’s 220-year history the Louvre considered hiring non-French candidates for the role of director.

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After twelve years at the helm of the world’s busiest museum, Henri Loyrette announced that he will leave his post at the Musée du Louvre in April of 2013. Before becoming the president and director of the Louvre, Loyrette served as the first curator and then the director of Paris’ Musée d’Orsay from 1994 to 2001 and has served as France’s chief curator of heritage since 1975. Loyrette has already informed the president of France, François Hollande, and the country’s minister of culture of his departure.

The Louvre attracts more visitors each year than any other institution in the world and Loyrette has managed to keep that number on the rise. In fact, the number of visitors has almost doubled under Loyrette’s leadership; 5.1 million patrons were reported in 2001 and by the end of 2012, almost 10 million people will have visited the Louvre this year.

However, Loyrette did much more than increase attendance during his time at the Louvre. He is responsible for implementing the museum’s contemporary art program and has organized exhibitions by Cy Twombly (1928-2011), Anselm Kiefer (b. 1945), and many other renowned modern artists. Loyrette employed a new policy that relied on crowd-sourced fundraising and launched a number of successful public campaigns that asked art enthusiasts to help the museum make important acquisitions. Loyrette also oversaw the opening of the Louvre’s outpost in the northern city of Lens as well as the expansion of the museum’s Islamic art galleries, which opened earlier this year.

Loyrette will no longer be in charge when the Louvre’s outpost in Abu Dhabi opens. The controversial project stirred debate in the French art world as Abu Dhabi has paid nearly $1.3 billion to use the Louvre name for thirty years and to gain access to the museum’s collection during that time. Designed by French architect Jean Nouvel, the Abu Dhabi location is slated to open in 2015.

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