Lars Nittve (born 17 September 1953) is a Swedish museum director, curator, art critic and writer. He was the founding Director of Tate Modern in London; former Director of the Moderna Museet in Stockholm; the founding Director of Rooseum – Center for Contemporary Art – in Malmö, Sweden; and Director of the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebaek, Denmark. Nittve was the Executive Director of M+, museum for visual culture of West Kowloon Cultural District in Hong Kong. Early life and education Lars Nittve was born in Stockholm in 1953. He studied at the Stockholm School of Economics, and obtained an M.A. at Stockholm University. He also pursued postgraduate studies at New York University. In 2009, Nittve earned a PhD, HC, from the Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden. Career In 1978 to 1985, Nittve served as lecturer in art history at the Stockholm University. During the same period he has been Senior art critic for the Swedish daily newspaper Svenska Dagbladet, Stockholm, and contributed regularly to Artforum, New York City. From 1986 Nittve was appointed Chief Curator at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, where he curated a large number of high-profile exhibitions – both monographic and thematic, among them "Walter De Maria", "Kandinsky and Sweden", "Hilma af Klint" and the seminal "Implosion – a Postmodern Perspective". From 1990 to 1995, he served as the founding Director of Rooseum – Center for Contemporary Art – in Malmö, Sweden, where he organized the whole exhibition program, including surveys of "Susan Rothenberg", "Allan McCollum", "Sherrie Levine" and "Andreas Gursky". In July 1995, Nittve became Director of the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebaek, Denmark, where he also curated the groundbreaking exhibition "Sunshine & Noir – Art in L.A. 1960–1997". In the spring of 1998, he was named the first Director of Tate Modern, London, which opened in May 2000 to great acclaim. In 2001, he took up his post as Director of Moderna Museet, the national Museum of Modern Art in Stockholm. He co-curated the thematic exhibition Fashination in 2004 about the dialogue between art and fashion in the last ten years. Other exhibitions include "Time and Place: Los Angeles 1957–1968" (2008); "Anthony McCall" (2009) and most recently "Ed Ruscha: Fifty Years of Painting" (2010). During his time at the Moderna Museet, Nittve was instrumental in the fundraising effort (70 million USD) that strengthened the collection and oversaw the expansion of the