Stephan Jost, the director and CEO of the Art Gallery of Ontario, will leave his posts at the end of the year, the Toronto museum announced on Tuesday.
Within the Canadian art scene, Jost’s leadership has been polarizing. He has drawn praise for making a significant investment in modern and contemporary art at the AGO, which acquired a range of important artworks in that area, including 450 works by Diane Arbus, 200 works by Peter Hujar, and 227 works by Hiroshi Sugimoto. In 2027, the museum will open a new gallery for modern and contemporary art that spans 40,000 square feet and five floors.
But Jost’s tenure was also marred by controversy over the past few years. In 2023, Wanda Nanibush, the museum’s first curator of Indigenous art, departed the museum amid scrutiny over her social media posts in support of Palestine; another curator exited the museum after she left. Earlier this year, a senior curator departed the AGO after reports that the museum had rejected a plan to acquire a work by Nan Goldin because the artist had described Israel’s war in Gaza as a genocide.
In 2024, meanwhile, more than 400 unionized workers at the museum led a strike over low wages that forced the AGO to close for a month.
In a statement, Jost framed his resignation as a response to the completion of a spread of long-term goals. “Over the summer, I reflected on arriving at the AGO 10 years ago and establishing the Strategic Plan we call AGO 2028,” he said in a statement. “I realized that we have met our goals ahead of schedule. Now is the time to set the AGO up for the future with new leadership.”
The museum’s release noted that Jost had expanded access to the AGO by altering its admission policy so that Ontario residents under the age of 25 get in for free. It also stated that Jost had played a role in gaining the museum $500 million in gifts.
“Stephan has transformed the AGO over the past decade,” Beth Horowitz, museum board co-president, said in a statement. “The collection is broader, deeper and more inclusive, the audience is younger and more diverse. His leadership of the Dani Reiss Modern and Contemporary Gallery project—fully funded and on track—is his legacy and will have a lasting impact.”
Prior to joining the AGO in 2016, Jost had been director of the Honolulu Museum of Art in Hawai’i. From 2024 to 2025, he also served as president of the Association of Art Museum Directors, an influential industry group that offers guidance to institutional leadership to museum directors in the US, Canada, and Mexico.
The AGO’s announcement did not detail Jost’s future plans. The museum said it would now begin a search for a new director and CEO.
