Just days after the Louvre opened its nearly $200-million outpost in the industrial town of Lens in northern France, Henri Loyrette, the Louvre's longtime director who was a champion of the project, announced his resignation after having run the museum for 12 years. He plans to leave in April.
According to The Art Newspaper, the Louvre issued a statement on Monday confirming Mr. Loyrette's decision. “Loyrette has informed the president of France and the minister of culture of his decision not to seek a renewal of his mandate,'' the statement read.
During his years at the Louvre attendance reached a record high of nearly 10 million visitors by the end of this year, almost double the 5.1 million people who came in 2001. In September Mr. Loyrette opened new $125-million galleries for Islamic art gracefully tucked ino the museum's Visconti Courtyard. While the French government kicked in some support for the project, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia gave the Louvre $20 million for the galleries.
Besides his effective fund-raising skills Mr. Loyrette brought contemporary art into the Louvre, including a monumental installation by Anselm Kiefer in 2007 and a ceiling mural by Cy Twombly in 2010. He also showed the work of other artists like Anish Kapoor, Wim Delvoye and Giuseppe Penone.
Mr. Loyrette is departing before the completion of the institution's most ambitious project to date, which started during his tenure: A new Jean Nouvel-designed museum to be built on Saadiyat Island in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates . It was originally scheduled to open next year but it has been delayed until at least 2015. The Louvre will receive more than $500 million over the next 30 years from the United Arab Emirates authorities in exchange for use of its name.
