Toronto’s 50 Most Influential: #36, Stephan Jost

Toronto’s 50 Most Influential: #36, Stephan Jost

Stephan Jost Photograph courtesy of The AGO

Stephan Jost

Director, AGO

36The 10-month hunt for a new AGO honcho turned up Stephan Jost, the former director of the Honolulu Museum of Art. While there, he reversed financial fortunes and cleared 85 per cent of the museum’s debt, in part by introducing a $25 basic membership and expanding the education program. In his first months at the AGO, he helped deliver two wildly successful crowd-pleasers: the Steve Martin–curated Lawren Harris exhibit and the Monet-heavy Mystical Landscapes, which brought in rare canvases from Paris’s Musée d’Orsay.

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