Case Study: Why Louvre Abu Dhabi Has Turned to Souraya Noujaim for Its Second Decade

The case

Louvre Abu Dhabi has just named its new director, and it is a familiar face. On 7 October 2026, the Department of Culture and Tourism, Abu Dhabi (DCT Abu Dhabi) announced that Dr Souraya Noujaim, the museum's first Scientific, Curatorial and Collections Management Director, will return to lead it as it approaches its tenth anniversary in 2027. She succeeds Manuel Rabaté, who led the museum from 2016 and oversaw its opening in 2017, and whose move to the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art in New Delhi was announced in February 2026.

The numbers

Since opening in November 2017, the Jean Nouvel-designed museum has welcomed more than eight million visitors, according to The National. It has staged 22 temporary exhibitions, five editions of Art Here and six exhibitions at its Children's Museum. Perhaps the most telling figure concerns the collection: at opening, around 30 per cent of the works on display belonged to the museum itself, while today nearly two thirds of the works shown across its four chronological sections are its own.

The scale of her most recent job is just as striking. As Director of the Department of Islamic Arts at the Musée du Louvre in Paris and chief of France's Grand Department of Islamic Art Heritage, Noujaim was responsible for a collection of 18,000 Islamic artworks.

What happened

Born in Lebanon in 1967, Noujaim is an art historian and curator specialising in Islamic art and archaeology. She holds a doctorate from Paris Nanterre University, trained at the École du Louvre and worked at the Louvre, the British Museum and the Institut du Monde Arabe before joining France Muséums in 2013. She joined Louvre Abu Dhabi in February 2018 and stayed until April 2023, helping to build the collection through acquisitions, helping to launch Art Here and the Richard Mille Art Prize, and setting up the museum's scientific analysis laboratory.

In June 2023 she moved to Paris to lead the Louvre's Department of Islamic Arts, succeeding Yannick Lintz. There, with Carine Juvin, she curated Mamluks (1250-1517), which the Louvre billed as a European first: a major exhibition on the Mamluk sultanate, with nearly 260 works, on view from 30 April to 28 July 2025. The Louvre chose its celebrated Mamluk basin, known as the Baptistère de Saint Louis, as the face of the show. The same pair then curated Mamluks: Legacy of an Empire at Louvre Abu Dhabi, with more than 270 works lent by 34 institutions in 13 countries, from 17 September 2025 to 25 January 2026.

"Louvre Abu Dhabi holds a special place in my professional and personal journey," Noujaim said in a statement reported by The National. "I am honoured to return to Abu Dhabi and lead this remarkable institution into its next chapter," she added, according to Khaleej Times. Mohamed Khalifa Al Mubarak, Chairman of DCT Abu Dhabi and President of Louvre Abu Dhabi, said: "Dr Noujaim has been part of the museum's journey from its earliest stages."

Why it matters for the region

Louvre Abu Dhabi was born of an intergovernmental agreement between France and the UAE signed on 6 March 2007, and is often described as the first universal museum in the Arab world. Handing its leadership to a Lebanese-born scholar of Islamic art who helped build it from the inside is a meaningful moment for the MENA region. It signals continuity, and it puts someone whose expertise lies in the arts of our region at the helm of the region's flagship universal museum, just as Abu Dhabi's cultural landscape is about to change dramatically. Spices and Wonders: Sailing the Indian Ocean opens on 14 October, Art Here 2026 follows on 11 November, Frieze Abu Dhabi arrives from 19 to 22 November, and the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi opens on 11 December 2026.

What to watch

Three things. First, how the museum marks its tenth anniversary in 2027, and whether that brings major acquisitions or a refreshed hang of the permanent galleries, given how central the collection was to her first spell. Second, how Louvre Abu Dhabi positions itself alongside the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi on Saadiyat once the two are open side by side. Third, whom the Louvre names to succeed her at the head of its Department of Islamic Arts in Paris.

We're eager to see what she does with the museum's second decade.

Spices and Wonders: Sailing the Indian Ocean, the museum's next exhibition, opens at Louvre Abu Dhabi on 14 October 2026.

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