Sydney Art Museum Receives Big Funding Boost

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SYDNEY, Australia — After four years of uncertainty and controversy, a proposed expansion to Sydney’s premier art museum, the Art Gallery of New South Wales, has received a major boost with a local grant of 244 million Australian dollars (about $184 million).

The state treasurer, Dominic Perrottet, said the expansion would “turn our 19th-century gallery into a global museum of the future,” the Sydney Morning Herald reported on Tuesday. A government spokesman confirmed the grant.

The expansion, called Sydney Modern, will also help the city catch up to its chief rival, Melbourne, as a destination for great art, and help prevent it from missing out on both exhibitions and gifts of art for want of adequate space, in the view of supporters of the project.

The grant will cover only part of the cost of the expansion, which was designed by the Japanese architectural firm Sanaa. Another 100 million Australian dollars (about $75.4 million) must be raised from the private sector, of which the gallery says 70 million (about $53 million) has been pledged. A campaign to raise the rest will begin shortly.

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