Whitechapel Gallery is honoured to inaugurate the D. Daskalopoulos Gallery, in recognition of visionary collector and philanthropist Dimitris Daskalopoulos, who has played an invaluable role in the transformation of this historic institution in the 21st century.
In 2010-11, Dimitris Daskalopoulos allowed Whitechapel Gallery access to his extraordinary collection of international contemporary art, in order for it to be displayed in London. The four Keeping it Real displays launched the public presentation of important private collections at Whitechapel Gallery, an initiative which has brought great works of art from behind closed doors to be shared with broad audiences through innovative curatorial experiments.
Other support of the Gallery has included the Daskalopoulos Director of Education and Public Programmes, as part of the Gallery’s Future Fund campaign, reflecting a longstanding philanthropic support of these activities in public institutions. Equally recognising the importance of supporting curators from a variety of backgrounds, he made possible a pioneering curatorial exchange between Whitechapel Gallery and the NEON Foundation, enable young curators to develop their skills and build invaluable international networks.
In his naming of this gallery, as the lead gift in Whitechapel Gallery Towards Tomorrow campaign, Dimitris Daskalopoulos has again demonstrated his belief in the importance of the Gallery as a leader in the international artistic and cultural landscape, and helped to ensure that it can continue to thrive in years to come.
Dimitris Daskalopoulos (born 1957 in Athens, Greece) is an entrepreneur, the founder and Chairman of DAMMA Holdings SA, a financial services and investment company. He served as the Chairman of the Board of the Hellenic Federation of Enterprises (SEV) for 8 consecutive years (2006-2014). He is today SEV’s Honorary President. From 2013 to 2015 he served as BUSINESSEUROPE’s Vice President and from 1983 to 2007 he was the principal owner, Chairman and CEO of Delta Holdings/Vivartia SA, Greece’s largest food conglomerate. He is the founder and Chairman of diaNEOsis (2015), a research think tank in Greece, which commissions studies and makes policy proposals on the major social and economic issues in Greece. Dimitris Daskalopoulos is a collector of contemporary art, D.Daskalopoulos Collection (1994). He is also a Vice President of the Board of Trustees of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, Chairman of the Collections Council of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, and an active member of the Board of Trustees of the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, the Tate International Council, the Leadership Council of the New Museum and a founding partner of the Whitechapel’s Future Fund (2011). He is the founder of NEON (2013), a non-profit organization, which works to bring contemporary culture in Greece closer to everyone. Thematic exhibitions based on his collection have been presented at the Whitechapel Gallery, London (2010-2011), the Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao (2011) and the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh (2012-2013). In 2014 ICI honored Dimitris Daskalopoulos with the Leo Award. The award acknowledged Mr. Daskalopoulos’s visionary approach to collecting, through the D.Daskalopoulos Collection, and his work in establishing NEON. In 2018 the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation honored Dimitris Daskalopoulos at the Guggenheim International Gala for his innovative philanthropy in the arts. In 2022 it was announced that a major body of important contemporary artworks from the D.Daskalopoulos Collection will be donated to 4 museums (EMST, TATE and jointly to Guggenheim and MCA Chicago), in 3 countries over 2 continents to create a pioneering network of collaborations and synergies.
