Loyrette, Henri

▪ 2002

      On March 28, 2001, the French government announced the appointment of Henri Loyrette, head of the Orsay Museum, to be the new director of the Louvre Museum. The 48-year-old arts administrator and historian thus moved across the Seine River on April 14 to take on the responsibility of running the national museum of France, the largest in the country and one of the largest and most important in Europe. He replaced the retiring Pierre Rosenberg, who had been associated with the Louvre for nearly 40 years and who had been its director since 1994. Not only was Loyrette one of the youngest persons ever to head the Louvre, but it was also notable that he had not risen through the ranks at the institution, which was the normal path of advancement to the top.

      Loyrette was born on May 31, 1952, in Neuilly-sur-Seine, a suburb of Paris. He received a university degree in history and in 1975–77 studied in Rome at the Academy of France. Upon his return to France in 1978, he was appointed curator at the Orsay, where he remained for 23 years, becoming director in 1994. The Orsay boasted the largest collection of 19th-century art of any French museum, and Loyrette, whose specialties were 19th-century painting and architecture, organized a number of successful exhibitions there. These included exhibitions on Edgar Degas, on whom Loyrette was an expert, on the caricaturist Honoré Daumier, and on the still lifes of Édouard Manet, as well as on lesser-known European artists. Loyrette also organized exhibitions on the origins of Impressionism and on the relation of Impressionism and Art Nouveau, in addition to the 1987–88 exhibition “Chicago, Birth of a Metropolis.” Loyrette's writings included three books on Degas, as well as works on a number of other 19th-century artists, on Gustave Eiffel, and on Marcel Proust's views on modern art.

      Loyrette held important positions in several French cultural organizations, and he had been widely honoured. He served as secretary-general of the French Committee on Art History and was a member of the board of directors of a number of institutions, including the National Graduate School of Decorative Arts and the Cité de la Musique, an interactive museum in Paris. When he was elected to the Académie des Beaux-Arts in 1997, he was its youngest member.

      As the new director of the Louvre, Loyrette faced the kinds of problems museums throughout the world were grappling with, including ensuring sources of adequate funding. This was particularly acute at the Louvre, where the large numbers of visitors put enormous demands on the staff and physical plant. Nonetheless, Loyrette, with his distinguished background and experience, appeared to be a natural fit for the position.

Robert Rauch

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