ATLANTA, Georgia (AP) -- Starting next year, art lovers won't have to cross the Atlantic to see sculptures and paintings at one of the world's finest art museums. The Louvre in Paris plans to display some of its renowned collections in the United States, but only at one museum -- Atlanta's High Museum of Art.It will mark the first time in the Louvre's 212-year history that the museum has agreed to share entire collections with another museum for an extended period.The "Louvre in Atlanta" project will be launched in January with an exchange of high school students between Atlanta and Paris followed by the display of some Louvre exhibits at the High Museum starting in the fall of 2006.The arrangement breaks new ground in the international art world and scores a diplomatic success among tense Franco-American relations."On France's part, this is more than a gesture," French Culture Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres told The Associated Press in an interview from Paris. "It's an attitude that demonstrates that we are solid allies and friends."As part of a goodwill tour in the United States that also took him to New Orleans, Donnedieu de Vabres traveled to Atlanta this month to award High Museum Director Michael Shapiro one of France's top cultural honors -- a knighthood in the Order of Arts and Letters -- for putting together the unique collaboration.While it is routine for one of the world's most complete encyclopedic museums to lend works of art to traveling exhibits, they rarely leave for more than three months. The Louvre-High collaboration will last for three years, which is a first, de Vabres and Louvre officials said.For decades, museums of all sizes have struck short-term international partnerships -- including FRAME, a program matching smaller French and U.S. museums -- but not such an extensive one, said Ed Able, president of the American Association of Museums.For the High, which has been building an international reputation through popular exhibits and its Renzo Piano designed expansion that opened November 12, the partnership means hosting works of the caliber usually seen at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York or the Art Institute of Chicago.Large Louvre collections -- including the Greco-Roman antiquities of Napoleon's wife, the royal collection of prints and drawings and contemporary still-lifes -- will be on view in Atlanta, complemented by smaller exhibits such as one on the late 18th-century sculpted portraits by Jean-Antoine Houdon.For the Louvre, the collaboration means a new step in making its art more accessible to visitors, and learning more about American fund-raising techniques.Since 2002, a New York-based group, American Friends of the Louvre, has helped fund the museum's efforts to better serve visitors who don't speak French through bilingual informational pamphlets, labels and the Web site, said the group's director, Sue Devine.About 1.2 million Americans visit the Louvre each year, accounting for nearly 20 percent of the museum's visitors. Most come to see Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa painting -- which can't travel because it's too fragile and is the museum's top draw.Americans also open their pocketbooks for the Louvre well beyond the $10.50 admission price. About five donors in Atlanta gave more than $1 million apiece to pay loan fees for the Louvre in Atlanta programs, Devine said.The Louvre plans to use the nearly $10 million it is getting for the project to restore its galleries housing 18th-century decorative arts, Lerolle said.The connection between the French government and the High started more than 40 years ago in tragedy. In summer 1962, 106 members of the Atlanta Art Association -- the group behind the High Museum's founding in the early 1900s -- died in a plane crash outside Paris. In response, France sent several masterpieces to be shown in Atlanta.More recently, in 1999 and 2002, the directors of the High and Louvre collaborated on organizing two impressionism exhibits at the High.While both credit their personal relationship with the Louvre's choice of the High for the partnership, the unprecedented Louvre partnership and de Vabres' recognition signal that the arts make a good bridge over the trans-Atlantic divide created by the war in Iraq, which continues to loom wide while the French lead Europe's desire for more independence from the United States."There is a growing understanding in the U.S. government of the importance of cultural diplomacy," said Karl Hofmann, second in command at the U.S. Embassy in Paris. "This is something we strongly support.""This is a magnificent initiative because it is very important to build and enlarge the links between Americans and Europeans," de Vabres said. "Through cultural and artistic links, people can discover one another's attractions."Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Sunday, December 25, 2005
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