UK's National Gallery will use $500
million in donations for a new wing and expanded collection
[September 10, 2025]
LONDON (AP) — Britain’s National Gallery announced Tuesday that
it will use a whopping 375 million pounds ($510 million) in donations to
open a new wing that, for the first time, will include modern art. |

People sit near a fountain outside of the National Gallery in London,
Friday, May 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung, File) |
Founded in 1824, the gallery has amassed a centuries-spanning
collection of Western paintings by artists from Leonardo da
Vinci to J.M.W Turner and Vincent van Gogh — but almost nothing
created after the year 1900. The modern era has been left to
other galleries, including London’s Tate Modern.
That will change when the gallery opens a new wing to be
constructed on land beside its Trafalgar Square site that is
currently occupied by a hotel and offices. An architectural
competition will be held to pick a design.
The gallery on London’s Trafalgar Square says money for the
projects includes the two biggest donations ever publicly
reported by any museum or gallery. It got 150 million pounds
($204 million) from the Crankstart foundation founded by Silicon
Valley venture capitalist Michael Moritz and his wife, writer
Harriet Heyman, and the same amount from the Julia Rausing Trust
run by Tetra Pak heir Hans Rausing.
National Gallery director Gabriele Finaldi said the aim is “to
be the place where the U.K. public and visitors from across the
globe can enjoy the finest painting collection in the world from
medieval times to our own, in a superb architectural setting.”
The gallery said it will build its collection of post-1900 works
in collaboration with Tate, which holds the U.K.’s leading
collections of British art and post-1900 international art.
Tate director Maria Balshaw said the organization “looks forward
to working closely with colleagues at the National Gallery on
loans, curatorial and conservational expertise to support the
development of their new displays.”
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