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Love art? Head to Louvre Atlanta

European art treasures visit the United States in unprecedented partnership

By Alison Woo, Travel Maven

If you are one of the millions of people who love art but can’t go across “the pond” to see one of the greatest museums in the world – Paris’ The Louvre – then worry no more. The venerable French museum has created a historic partnership with Atlanta’s High Museum of Art.

The High and the Louvre launched their three-year partnership on October 14, 2006, with the exhibitions “Kings as Collectors,” “The King’s Drawings” and “Faces of History and Myth: Busts from the Musée du Louvre.” The exhibition “Decorative Arts of the Kings” opened in Atlanta on March 3 and, along with “Kings as Collectors” and “Faces of History and Myth,” remains on view through the summer until Sept. 2.

“Through this series of exhibitions at the High, the Louvre has an opportunity to tell the remarkable story of the creation of the museum and the development of its unparalleled collections,” stated David Brenneman, the High’s Director of Collections and Exhibitions and Managing Curator of the Louvre exhibitions. “For American audiences, this collaboration also means the chance to see great works, like those by Raphael, Velázquez and Rembrandt, all in the same gallery—a juxtaposition of paintings not possible at the Louvre, where works are traditionally arranged according to their different schools.”

More than 180,000 museum visitors have walked through the High’s doors. “Atlanta and the Southeast have warmly embraced our partnership with the Louvre—and we are thrilled that so many people throughout the region are coming to view these masterpieces,” said Michael E. Shapiro, the High’s Nancy and Holcombe T. Green, Jr. Director. “Through our collaboration with the Louvre, we are providing our visitors with access to great art, and our exhibition research has revealed remarkable new discoveries that will present these works in a new light for both American and European audiences.”

In preparation for its display this fall as part of the exhibition “The Louvre and the Ancient World,” the Louvre has also begun restoring one of its most important Roman antiquities, “The Tiber,” including new research on the carving techniques used to create it. The conservation of this marble sculpture, along with a set of frescoes depicting the muses from Pompeii (AD 62–79), was facilitated by the High’s partnership with the Louvre.

The collaboration also includes the exchange of cultural expertise and operational strategies as well as educational programs and the development of joint publications, conferences, films and seminars exploring exhibitions and related themes.

 

Year Two and Year Three Exhibitions
In October, the High will launch its second year of exhibitions and programming in partnership with the Louvre, which will be devoted to the Louvre’s collection growth and development during the Napoleonic reign and the Enlightenment, a time of an increased interest in ancient art and archaeology. The central exhibition, “The Louvre and the Ancient World,” on view October 13, 2007, through September 2008, will feature masterpieces from the founding cultures of Western civilization and will include works from the Louvre’s Egyptian, Near Eastern, and Greco-Roman Antiquities departments.

The second year also includes the focus exhibition “Eye of Josephine,” on view October 13 through March 2008, which will reassemble for the first time an important and influential collection of Greco-Roman and Egyptian antiquities installed by the Empress Josephine at Malmaison, her residence located on the outskirts of Paris. A second focus exhibition, “Houdon in France and America,” on view April through September 2008, will present the work of Jean-Antoine Houdon, whose portraiture included prominent intellectual and political figures of the time, such as Diderot and Voltaire, as well as our founding fathers George Washington and Benjamin Franklin.

Year Three, October 2008–September 2009, will explore the Louvre of today and tomorrow. Exhibitions under development for this year will highlight the development of the present-day Louvre and its new relations with society and the world.

Partnership support
The total budget for “Louvre Atlanta” is estimated at $18 million. This includes a $6.4 million contribution from the High that will go toward the restoration of the Louvre’s 18th-century French decorative arts galleries.

To date, the High Museum of Art has raised nearly $17 million in support of “Louvre Atlanta.” Lead patronage for the project has been provided by longtime High Museum Board Member Anne Cox Chambers. Accenture is the Presenting Partner. UPS, Turner Broadcasting Corporation, The Coca-Cola Company, Delta Air Lines and AXA Art Insurance are Lead Corporate Partners for “Louvre Atlanta.”

The High Museum of Art, founded in 1905 as the Atlanta Art Association, is the leading art museum in the southeastern United States. With more than 11,000 works of art in its permanent collection, the High Museum of Art has an extensive anthology of 19th- and 20th-century American art, significant holdings of European paintings and decorative art, a growing collection of African American art, and burgeoning collections of modern and contemporary art, photography and African art.

The High is also dedicated to supporting and collecting works by Southern artists and is distinguished as the only major museum in North America to have a curatorial department specifically devoted to the field of folk and self-taught art.

For more information about the High, please visit www.High.org.
 

Alison Woo is Passionate for Life’s travel maven. You can reach her at alisonwoo@yahoo.com.

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