The California architect Frank Gehry has been chosen to design the expansion of the gallery’s 1911 building, to be completed in 2007. Plans include adding about 40 per cent more gallery space, 75,000 square feet. Lord Thomson is contributing $44m to the project, federal and provincial governments are giving $30m and the rest will come from private donors. The gallery has housed 300 works from Lord Thomson's collection since 1997.
Rubens will go on public display
Rubens’ Massacre of the Innocents is to go on public display at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto. Lord Thomson of Fleet, who set a record for an Old Master painting at auction when he paid £45m for the work at Sotheby’s in London in July, announced that the painting would join nearly 2000 other works in his collection at the gallery after it completes a $315m renovation and expansion.
