Just as soon as the 17th-century Dutch masterpiece painting the “Astronomer” recently left the High Museum of Art in Atlanta for Paris, Georges de la Tour’s the “Card-Sharp with the Ace of Diamonds” arrived as a replacement.

So it goes these days as the High continues to draw record crowds locally.  With the help of a three-year alliance with the Louvre museum in Paris, the High has developed a reputation for attracting acclaimed exhibitions.

In addition to the Louvre Atlanta exhibition, “The First Emperor: China’s Terracotta Army,” has received accolades, having been rated by Time magazine as fourth among the top 10 museum exhibits in the U.S. last year.

Michael Shapiro, the High’s director, said during a luncheon address at the Kiwanis Club of Atlanta downtown Feb. 17 that he already is planning for exhibitions that will be at the High in 2011 and 2013.

One thing leads to another, he explained, describing how Mike Eskew, the former CEO of United Parcel Service Inc., encouraged him to think of bringing a Chinese exhibition to the High while they were in Paris together preparing for the Louvre Atlanta exhibit.

UPS was responsible for transporting almost all of the art work from the Louvre to Atlanta and has extensive operations in China. UPS also is handled the movement of the 2,200-year-old terra cotta warriors and artifacts from China to the U.S. for their four-city tour.

Mr. Eskew’s suggestion led to the 100 or so works on loan from the Museum of the Terracotta Army and the Cultural Relics Bureau of Shaanxi Province in X’ian, China, coming to Atlanta.

While the High has announced that its 1 millionth visitor attended the Louvre Atlanta exhibition, which opened in October 2006, the Terracotta Army is pulling in great numbers as well.  Since its opening in November last year, it has attracted some 214,000 visitors with an additional 60,000 tickets already sold.

Now Dr. Shapiro is planning for exhibitions three to five years in advance even though the museum’s endowment has dropped in the past six to eight months from $100 million to $78 million as financial markets have plunged.

Nevertheless, he said he remains confident that the museum’s conservative management practices of payouts for operations based on 5-year budgeting will enable him to proceed with balanced budgets.

The museum will be coming out of its current budgetary cycle in a few years when the economy should be picking up again. At the moment, it is guarding its reserves, he said, and benefits from the robust economy of a few years ago despite the drop in value of its endowment.

(On Feb. 25, Dr. Shapiro announced that he would be taking a 7 percent pay cut and other employees also would have pay cuts through May 31, 2009. Beginning June 1 and extending through fiscal year 2010, salaries would be reinstated but employees would be required to take 2.6 weeks of unpaid leave. He also has eliminated five full-time positions and three temporary positions. The record-breaking attendance for the 'First Emperor' exhibition, he said in a news release, represents only a small piece of the museum's overall budget.) 

At the luncheon, he was asked whether this would be a good time for the museum to make some acquisitions and he indicated that he hoped to be able to make some intriguing announcements in the near future.

In the meantime, a new Leonardo da Vinci exhibition is to run from Oct. 3-Feb. 21, 2010.  Titled “Leonardo da Vinci and the Art of Sculpture: Inspiration and Invention,” the exhibition is to feature more than 50 works.

Dr. Shapiro also said that an upcoming exhibition of the “Golden Age of Automobiles” from the 1930s-60s would feature the finest models of Bugati, Porsche, Ferrari and Duesenberg.

To learn about other programs at the High, go to www.high.org