Curators at Tate are putting on display works donated to the institution by the Greek tycoon Dimitris Daskalopoulos who decided to give away his collection in one of the largest ever philanthropic gifts. Twenty pieces are on display at Tate Modern, Britain and St Ives this year while 15 other works will go on show by the end of next month.
Daskalopoulos made his fortune in the Greek food industry and is the founder and chairman of Damma Holdings, a financial services and investment company. He established his Athens-based foundation Neon in 2013.
In 2022, he announced plans to donate more than 350 works from his vast contemporary art holdings to four international museums. Tate gets more than 110 works and the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Athens (EMST) receives 140 pieces. The Guggenheim in New York and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (MCA Chicago) assume joint ownership of around 100 works.
Louise Bourgeois, Fillette (Sweeter Version, 1968–99) © The Easton Foundation. Photo © Tate
The entire donation, featuring works by 53 artists, has been uploaded to tate.org.uk. “Twenty of these works can also be experienced in person in new displays at Tate Modern, Tate Britain and Tate St Ives, with 15 more to follow by the end of the year,” a Tate statement says.
Works on show at Tate Modern from the Daskalopoulos collection gift include Louise Bourgeois’s phallic sculpture Fillette (Sweeter Version, undated). Three solo rooms dedicated to David Hammons, Robert Gober and Martin Kippenberger feature works all drawn from the collection. The works on view include Gober’s Dog Bed (1986-87) and Blue Angels (Penises, around 1970) by Hammons. Works by Lynda Benglis and Dieter Roth are on display at Tate St Ives while later this year works by Sarah Lucas, Damien Hirst and Mona Hatoum will go on show at Tate Britain.
Tate's director Maria Balshaw says in a statement: “We have spent the past two years integrating these incredible works of art into the national collection and I’m delighted to see them beginning to go on display.” Tate will also make the donated works available to other museums and galleries with several works due to travel to UK venues in the coming years, adds the project statement. Next summer Helen Chadwick’s installation Piss Flowers (1991-92) from the Daskalopoulos collection gift will tour to National Galleries Scotland.
Other works from the collection are meanwhile on display at the other venues involved in the initiative. The National Museum of Contemporary Art Athens (ΕΜΣΤ) has included 24 works from the D.Daskalopoulos Collection Gift in its latest re-hang entitled Women, Together.
Daskalopoulos began collecting in 1994, explaining his decision to give away the works to The Art Newspaper saying: “For me, it was a one-way street and about making these works available to the public. I have built relationships with the collections; this is a culmination of a way of thinking over many years.”
He says that he initially mentioned his plan to a Greek newspaper in October 2014. “This was the first time when I said my collection is going to public institutions. I had already made the decision. Anglo-Saxon museum directors are very good at warming up collectors.”
Exhibitions of works drawn from the collection were held at the Whitechapel Gallery, London (2010–2011); Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao (2011); and the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh (2012–2013).