Prix Meurice for Contemporary Art 2010/2011

Henri Loyrette

President of the Louvre

Previously a scholar at the Académie de France in Rome and Conservateur Général du Patrimoine, Henri Loyrette was appointed Director of the Musée d'Orsay in 1994.
In 2001, not yet 50 years old, he took over the Directorship of the Musée du Louvre. As the man who won autonomous administration for this public institution, Henri Loyrette personifies reform at the Louvre. He has implemented vast projects both within the museum, with the creation of a Department of Islamic Art, and beyond: the Louvre Lens in France, a partnership with the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, and the Louvre Abu Dhabi project.
A specialist in Degas and the Impressionist period in general, it was with great conviction that Henri Loyrette brought contemporary art within the Louvre's walls in 2008, with Jan Fabre joining Rubens in the Galerie Medicis, and Clara-Clara by Richard Serra in the Tuileries alongside Welcoming Hands by Louise Bourgeois, whose giant spider stands in the Carrousel Garden. In 2009, a work by the Chinese painter Yan Pei Ming was hung opposite the Mona Lisa.