Hugh Lane Gallery to re-open.

The Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin is to reopen in May 2006 after a 13 million expansion and refurbishment project lasting five years. The gallery in Charlemont House on Parnell Square has been given 13 new exhibition spaces, effectively doubling its size. A lecture hall with state-of-the-art technology, a workshop space, a bookshop and a coffee shop have also been added. 9 million have been spent on new acquisitions, including six unfinished canvasses by Francis Bacon and works by contemporary conceptualist artist Brian O'Doherty. For the reopening a six-metre bronze hare by Irish sculptor Brian Flanagan will be installed on O'Connell Bridge, with a procession of smaller hares leading down OConnell Street to the gallery. The Hugh Lane Bequest paintings by French impressionist masters, currently held by the National Gallery in London, will also go on display. Irish-born philanthropist Hugh Lane, the gallerys founder, also established Dublins Municipal Gallery of Modern Art in 1908.