to a new ownership claim.

This undated photo shows A.Y. Jackson looking over one of his paintings hanging at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection in Kleinburg, Ont. (Blaise Edwards/Canadian Press)

Deaccessioning tends to make headlines when a museum does so for financial reasons — to raise money for new acquisitions, for instance, or to cover its operating costs.

At the AGO, which has been attempting to diversify its collection, staff felt A.Y. Jackson was a prime candidate for deaccessioning, said Georgiana Uhlyarik, the gallery's curator of Canadian art.

Despite removing 20 pieces to be auctioned — 17 this week and three more in the fall — the AGO will still have nearly 150 Jackson artworks in its collection. Uhlyarik says the Group of Seven artist is also well represented in sister galleries:Delaware Art Museum sparked backlashes in recent years for selling major artworks to pay for expansions and boost their endowment funds. Both were formally sanctioned by the Association of Art Museum Directors, which urged its members to cease loans, collaborations and exhibitions with the two museums.

People were outraged when the town council in Northampton, England, deaccessioned and auctioned an ancient Egyptian statue in 2014 in order to fund an expansion of its museum. The descendent of the original donor launched a legal challenge that led to him receiving nearly half of the £15.8 million paid for the statue. The Northampton museum subsequently lost its membership in the U.K. Museums Association and accreditation from Arts Council England, which affected its partnerships with other museums and also led to it