For two years, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art has been selling paintings from its permanent collection and using the proceeds to acquire pieces for its European paintings gallery, the New York Times reports.

According to the Times, this isn't the first time that LACMA has sold works from its permanent collection. In January and June of 2009, Sotheby's auctioned paintings from the collection by Joshua Reynolds, Lucas Cranach the Elder, Pieter de Hooch, and others, raising more than $6 million. Proceeds from the Sotheby's auctions also will be used to help pay for two seventeenth-century paintings — Hendrick Avercamp's "Winter Scene on a Frozen Canal" and Jan van der Heyde's "View of the Herengracht, Amsterdam, from the Leliegracht" — that were partial gifts from Los Angeles collectors Edward W. Carter and his wife, Hannah.

"This is the completion of an effort to clarify the collection, said LACMA director Michael Govan. "We've been aggressively reshaping things and redoing our European paintings galleries with a grant from the Ahmanson Foundation."

Later this month, LACMA will open the newly renovated galleries featuring Dutch, Flemish, Spanish, and French paintings, while the newly redesigned Italian Baroque galleries — the largest space of its kind in any American institution, according to museum officials — will reopen in February.

J. Patrice Marandel, LACMA's chief curator of European paintings and sculpture, said the plan is for the galleries to evoke the way art was displayed in Roman palaces or English country homes, necessitating a close review of the museum's holdings. "It may seem shocking that I am selling paintings, but I'm willing to accept the criticism," said Marandel. "This isn't a study collection; it's a place to see the best paintings we can show so that visitors will be able to experience paintings as objects of enjoyment and culture. These galleries will also be a place where visitors can learn about the history of taste. As a result we've set the bar high."