She was chair and chief executive officer of the Canada Museums Construction Corporation from 1982 to 1985, where she directed the construction of both a custom-built National Gallery building and the unique Canadian Museum of Civilization (today known as the Canadian Museum of History) in collaboration with the architects Moshe Safdie and Douglas Cardinal. From 1991 to 1993, she was a senior advisor for the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. As an art historian, she has written books about the life of Edgar Degas, including "Portraits By Degas" (1962).