Atlanta museum links up with the Louvre

ATLANTA, Aug. 12 (UPI) -- Atlanta's High Museum of Art has bonded with the Louvre in Paris for a series of long-term loans from the Louvre for the opening of three new buildings.

The High's new buildings were designed by Italian architect Renzo Piano and are set to open in the autumn of 2005.

Michael E. Shapiro, director of the High, said the works coming from the Louvre will include paintings by Raphael, Peter Paul Rubens, Rembrandt van Rijn, Diego Velazquez and Jean Antoine Watteau. Beginning late in 2006 one of the new Piano buildings will have 10-month rotating installations of art from the Louvre, Shapiro said, and the two museums will make curatorial exchanges.

The relationship of the High and the Louvre began in 2001 when Henri Loyrette, then director of the Museum D'Orsay in Paris, began working with the Shaprio on a High Museum show, "Paris and the Age of Impressionism." Loyrette has since become the director of the Louvre and continued talks on how the two museums could collaborate.

"One of my hopes is that the Louvre can work with museums all around the U.S.," Loyrette said in the announcement.