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Jean-Luc Martinez, born on March 22, 1964, is a French archaeologist and art historian specializing in ancient Greek sculpture. Currently serving as a thematic ambassador responsible for international cooperation in the field of heritage, he was previously the president-director of the Louvre Museum from 2013 to 2021.
The son of a concierge and a postman, [1] Martinez studied at the Pablo-Picasso High School in Fontenay-sous-Bois. He graduated from the École du Louvre and obtained his agrégation in history in 1989. [2] From 1993 to 1996, he was a member of the French School at Athens, where he conducted excavations at Delos and Delphi. Martinez taught archaeology at the Catholic Institute of Paris and later at the University of Paris X-Nanterre. In 1997, he became Chief Curator of Greek antiquities at the Louvre and taught at the École du Louvre. [3] By a decree on September 4, 2007, he was formally integrated into the heritage curators' body effective from June 1, 2007. [4]
From 2007 to 2013, Martinez led the Department of Greek, Etruscan, and Roman Antiquities at the Louvre.
He designed the "Galerie du Temps" at the Louvre-Lens, inaugurated in 2012. [5]
In April 2013, Martinez was appointed President-Director of the Louvre, succeeding Henri Loyrette. [6] In 2018, he was reappointed for a second term. [7]
During his tenure, the number of exhibitions decreased, [8] though some attracted large crowds, such as the Johannes Vermeer exhibition [9] and the 2019-2020 Leonardo da Vinci exhibition, which drew nearly 1.1 million visitors, a record in the museum's history. [10] After the November 2015 terrorist attacks, visitor numbers declined, prompting enhanced security measures. However, in 2018, the Louvre achieved a historic attendance record, surpassing 10 million visitors.
Martinez oversaw the modernization of the reception infrastructure under the Pyramid, including ticketing, baggage handling, and group reception areas. More than half of the Louvre's rooms, approximately 34,000 square meters, were renovated between 2013 and 2021. Additional modernizations included online reservations with timed slots, Wi-Fi installation, improved signage translations, free online access to collections, and the restoration and re-vegetation of the Tuileries Garden.
Other projects initiated during his term include the "Petite Galerie" dedicated to the history of art, the "Studio" for training and welcoming priority audiences, and free evening openings on the first Saturday of each month.
The Louvre Abu Dhabi, inaugurated on November 8, 2017, was completed under his leadership. During its opening, President Emmanuel Macron described it as the "largest cultural cooperation project of France abroad."
Martinez decided to relocate the museum's reserves to Liévin to protect them from potential flooding caused by a Seine river flood. The conservation center in Liévin, designed by Richard Rogers' firm, was inaugurated in October 2019 and houses 250,000 works from the Louvre.
After an unsuccessful bid for a third term in 2021, Martinez was succeeded by Laurence des Cars. [11] In 2021, he was appointed a thematic ambassador for international cooperation in heritage. In 2022, his duties related to combating the trafficking of cultural goods were provisionally removed by the government.
Martinez authored several reports. Following the destruction of heritage sites in Syria and Iraq, he presented a report titled "Fifty French Proposals to Protect Humanity's Heritage" to President François Hollande in November 2015. This report led to the creation of the International Alliance for the Protection of Heritage in Conflict Areas (ALIPH).
In response to President Emmanuel Macron's 2017 speech in Ouagadougou and the restitution of 26 royal treasures to Benin, Martinez was commissioned to write a report on restitution. His report "Shared Heritage: Universality, Restitution, and the Circulation of Artworks – Towards a French Legislation and Doctrine on 'Restitution Criteria' for Cultural Goods" was submitted in April 2023. This report inspired several legislative texts, including the law on the restitution of looted cultural goods during the Holocaust, promulgated on July 22, 2023, and the law on the restitution of human remains in public collections, promulgated on December 26, 2023.
On May 23, 2022, Martinez was taken into custody as part of an antiquities trafficking case and was later indicted for "money laundering and complicity in organized fraud." He was accused of failing to exercise due diligence concerning inconsistencies identified later in the certificates accompanying a pink granite stele inscribed with Pharaoh Tutankhamun's name, exhibited at the Louvre Abu Dhabi, and four other objects.
Antiquities expert Christophe Kunicki, who proposed the Tutankhamun stele to the Louvre Abu Dhabi acquisition committee in 2016, was allegedly involved in selling the golden sarcophagus of priest Nedjemankh to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, which was returned to Egypt in 2019 after being stolen in 2011 during the Hosni Mubarak uprising. The Louvre Abu Dhabi is a civil party in the case.
In November 2022, the Attorney General of the Paris Court of Appeal called for the annulment of Martinez's indictment. The indictment was upheld on February 3, 2023, by the Court of Appeal and subsequently by the Court of Cassation, despite a request for annulment from the prosecution.
Martinez firmly contests his indictment and claims his innocence, denying responsibility for the actions in question. [12]
He highlights the organizational limitations of the system, including the structure responsible for controls, France Museums Agency. He asserts that verifying the authenticity of provenance documents for artworks is not within his remit and criticizes the lack of resources available to museum directors for this purpose. He notes that the fake stamps were only identified after a lengthy police investigation in the USA, triggered by the MET case.
The Louvre, or the Louvre Museum, is a national art museum in Paris, France, and one of the most famous museums in the world. It is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the city's 1st arrondissement and home to some of the most canonical works of Western art, including the Mona Lisa,Venus de Milo, and Winged Victory. The museum is housed in the Louvre Palace, originally built in the late 12th to 13th century under Philip II. Remnants of the Medieval Louvre fortress are visible in the basement of the museum. Due to urban expansion, the fortress eventually lost its defensive function, and in 1546 Francis I converted it into the primary residence of the French kings.
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The Study Mission on the Spoliation of Jews in France, also known as the Mission Mattéoli, was set up in March 1997 by Alain Juppé, then Prime Minister, and chaired by Jean Mattéoli.
National Museum Recuperation is the French state organization that manages the looted artworks recovered from Nazi Germany and returned to France after the Second World War. Of 61,000 looted artworks returned to France, 2143 remain in custody of the MNR.
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The Birds or The Two Birds is a monumental 1952–1953 ceiling painting by Georges Braque in the Salle Henri II in the Louvre, which had to be renovated at that time. He was commissioned by Georges Salles, director of the museums of France. It was unveiled in 1953. The artist succeeded in scaling an intimate theme dear to him up to a monumental scale. He resolved the problem posed by the vast canvas by using large blocks of colour, giving the work as a whole strength and simplicity.
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