Imperial War Museum to use billionaire’s gift to open new galleries

Nicoletta Tomassi, an IWM art conservator, checks and cleans Scene in an Underground Train, 1943: Workers returning from night shift, by Ruskin Spear. Photograph: Richard Ash/IWM

Images that tell the story of war and conflict over more than 100 years are to go on display for the first time next year in new Imperial War Museum galleries.

A multimillion-pound donation from the Blavatnik Family Foundation has enabled the museum to build art, film and photographic galleries at its London base. Acquisitions will be displayed alongside works from the museum’s existing collection, which dates from the first world war to the present day.