Ottawa has come up with $37.5 million for Quebec City's Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec.
Federal Heritage Minister Josée Verner and MP Lawrence Cannon announced the money Thursday in Quebec City.
Quebec's Musée national des beaux-arts, shown in January 2002, plans an 8,000-square-metre expansion.
(Canadian Press)
The grant represents more than a third of the cost of a proposed $90-million expansion, which will expand exhibit space by 8,000 square metres.
At the same time, Quebec MLAs Philippe Couillard and Christine Saint-Pierre announced a matching grant of $37.5 million.
The expansion is badly needed because the museum can currently display only two per cent of its collection, John Porter, executive director of the gallery, told CBC News.
"You see, one of our greatest artists is Jean-Paul Lemieux and all our Jean-Paul Lemieux are travelling around but we have no space for them in the museum, which is absolutely unbelievable," he said.
"It's the same thing for international [artists]. We have a major masterpiece by Turner. We can't put it on our walls — we have no walls."
Earlier this year, the museum bought a site formerly occupied by a Dominican monastery, near the Église St-Dominique.
It plans to create a tunnel under the Grand-Allée, a Quebec City thoroughfare, linking the existing Beaux-Arts building and the new one.
An international design contest will be held for the new building, with completion possible by 2012.
The new space could make it possible for the museum to have exhibition rooms dedicated to contemporary art, photography and Quebec art.
About 325,000 people visit the museum annually, but more than 400,000 are expected in 2008 because of the celebrations for the 400th anniversary of Quebec.
The museum is hosting an exhibit of works from the Louvre as part of the commemoration of the founding of Quebec.
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