The Sir Denis Mahon Foundation was created by Sir Denis in his lifetime.  It aims to continue his philanthropic work, his art historical research and his passionate promotion of young scholars, students and artists.  It promotes his art collection and lifelong work and studies to the general public, and organises exhibitions.   The Foundation supports museums, and endows two annual prizes for young scholars and artists, The Sir Denis Mahon Essay Prize, and a drawing prize at The Royal Drawing School, the Mahon Award. In 2020, we instituted the Sir Denis Mahon Sculptural Project Grant in collaboration with City & Guilds of London Art School, another initiative to honour his memory.

The Sir Denis Mahon Foundation has supported a number of other activities over recent years including a donation to the Bowes Museum in conjunction with their exhibition “The Power and the Virtue: Guido Reni’s Death of Lucretia” (25 October 2019 – 20 January 2020); supported the Foundling Museum with the restoration of one of their paintings; made a donation to the Pinacoteca di Cento, following the earthquake in 2012 and sponsored a Guercino Lecture organised in 2017 for the restoration of the fresco ceiling painted by Guercino at Piacenza Cathedral. The Foundation co-sponsored the publication of a revised edition of Salerno’s Monograph on the Paintings of Guercino by Nicholas Turner; sponsored a Baroque Masterpieces exhibition in the Diocese of Novara; made donations to the Art Fund for the London University Student Art Pass, for the purchase of the Van Dyck self-portrait, for a catalogue of Baroque and late Baroque Art by the University of Oxford; and for the recent purchase of a major painting for the National Gallery.

We also work with museums and galleries, and promote cultural events and exhibitions.

Between 5 October – 22 December 2020, our exhibition, Time {?} and Eternal Life, was held at Cromwell Place, London. The exhibition, promoted by The Sir Denis Mahon Foundation and Flat Time House, in collaboration with Bowman Sculpture, Fondazione Palazzo Albizzini Collezione Burri, Lisson Gallery, Robilant + Voena and Royal Museums Turin, spanned over five millennia, exploring the concept of Time and of Eternal life from Antiquity to the Modern Era.

 Between 30 January – 8 March 2020, we collaborated with Flat Time House in the exhibition, William Blake at Flat Time House.

Our previous exhibition Visions and Visionaries, in collaboration with the Bologna-based Association Age of Future, Flat Time House and Richard Saltoun Gallery was shown at Guildhall Art Gallery, London (11 December 2018 – 30 April 2019. The exhibition created a narrative of the Visionary movement from the artists who laid the foundations of the genre, to the avant-garde generation and contemporary artists that drew from these works and were inspired to find new forms in their art.  In June/July 2019 Visionaries and the Art of Performance was shown at the Festival of the Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy.

In 2018, together with Museum of the Order of St John, we organised the exhibition Techno Medioevo Age of Future Reloaded and a Study Day “The Language and meaning of Time in Art and Science”, in association with the Bologna-based group Age of Future and young academics from the Universities of Bologna, Imperial College and Cambridge.

Our exhibition Bice Visconti: Drawings and Sketchbooks from the Great War, was first shown at 48 Millbank in 2017, and subsequently at the National Gallery of Ireland until 3 February 2019.

The funding and placement of Sir Denis’s Archive and Library at the National Gallery of Ireland remains a major ongoing project for the Foundation.

The Sir Denis Mahon Foundation also endows two annual prizes for young scholars and artists, the Sir Denis Mahon Essay Prize, and The Mahon Award, a drawing prize at The Royal Drawing School, and an annual grant (for 3 years), The Sir Denis Mahon Sculptural Project Grant, at City & Guilds of London Art School.

THE TRUSTEES

Gareth Bell Jones
He is Director/Curator of Flat Time House, a gallery and archive in the former home of the great post-war conceptual artist John Latham(1921-2006). He is an associate lecturer and assessor for MA Curating and Collections at Chelsea School of Art . He is the editor of NO IT journal and he is well-known for his avant-garde reviews and contributions.

Prof David Ekserdjian
Prof Ekserdjian is The Sir Denis Mahon Foundation Official Delegate of the Centro di Studi Internazionale, il Guercino – Cento, Italy. He is Professor of History of Art and Film, University of Leicester and a former trustee of the National Gallery in London.
He is a world-renowned authority on Italian Renaissance paintings and drawings, with particular specialities in the artists Correggio and Parmigianino. He is also an expert on the history of collecting and an adviser to international museums and galleries such as the National Gallery and Tate Britain, as well as private collectors.

Francesco Gonzales
Prof Gonzales is a member of the Ufficio Beni Culturali Ecclesiastici della Diocesi di Novara. He was responsible for the reorganisation of the Pinacoteca dell’Accademia Albertina in Turin, the Collection Real Collegio Carlo Alberto di Moncalieri in Turin, and the Archivio Fotografico della Soprintendenza del Piemonte, as well as curating many important exhibitions. A well-known scholar, he has collaborated with The Sir Denis Mahon Foundation since its inception.

Avv. Nello Pasquini
Avv. Pasquini is a Teaching Fellow and Tutor in Italian Law at the University of Oxford, at the Institute of European and Comparative Law. He previously lectured in Italian Law at University College, London, in the Faculty of Laws in the Erasmus Programme. He has been a Consultant for the Italian Bar Council in Rome, organizing summer courses for Italian lawyers in London and the USA and was a Member of the European Private Law Committee of the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe. He has published several scholarly journal articles on various aspects of Italian Private Law. He is now a Consultant for the legal firm, Pini Franco LLP, in London and an advisor to The Sir Denis Mahon Foundation.

Federico Margelli
Born in Bologna, Italy in 1973, after graduation with a Master’s degree in Physics, he attained over ten years of scientific research in the field of atmospheric sciences at the Institute of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate (ISAC) of the National Research Council (CNR) and collaborated with leading Italian scientific Research Centres (ENEA, University of Ferrara, ASTER, University of Bologna). He has held key positions as a creator, Project Manager, and Communication and Marketing Manager of innovative industrial research, technology transfer and business creation projects. He has been the organiser, editor and presenter of numerous seminars, courses and scientific conferences. He is the author of numerous scientific publications. In 2011, his interests and research also began to encompass culture and music, and he took the role of head of administration, funding and public relations at the first Italian Centre for Music Research. He is currently enrolled on the History degree course at the University of Bologna and continues his scientific and humanistic studies.

Dr John T Spike
He is an American art historian, curator, and author, specializing in the Italian Renaissance and Baroque periods. He is also a prominent contemporary art critic and past director of the Florence Biennale. Dr Spike was Deputy Director, Muscarelle Museum of Art, The College of William and Mary, USA.

The Sir Denis Mahon Foundation is an advocate and champion of young scholars. Some of the following scholars, who collaborate with the Foundation, were past recipients or candidates of The Sir Denis Mahon Essay Prize.

Luke Farey is presently research coordinator for Piano Nobile, a gallery specialising in modern British art. He studied Art History at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge and the Courtauld Institute of Art.

Dr. Edward Payne is Assistant Professor in Art History before 1750 at Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark. He was previously Assistant Professor (Research); Pemberton Fellowship for the Study of Spanish Art, Zurbarán Centre for Spanish and Latin American Art ; School of Modern Languages and Cultures, Durham University. Dr. Payne was the first recipient of The Sir Denis Mahon Essay Prize in 2012 and he was a member of the Judging Panel of the Prize in 2019.

Magnus Rena graduated in 2020 in Art History from the Courtauld Institute of Art, receiving the Director’s Prize for his final dissertation. He was the 2018 winner of the Sir Denis Mahon Essay Prize. He regularly writes catalogue and exhibition texts for artists, art foundations and art galleries. He has co-curated exhibitions, the most recent of which was “The Bard : William Blake at Flat Time House” (30 January – 8 March 2020).

Saskia Rubin, the 2017 Winner of The Sir Denis Mahon Essay Prize, is a Doctor of Philosophy and a Doctoral Researcher at the Courtauld Institute of Art, where, in 2021, she completed her History of Art PhD on the work of Luca Giordano (1634-1705). Between March-June 2018, she completed a Michael Bromberg Fellowship in the Prints and Drawings department at the British Museum.

Henry Whaley studies Art History at the Courtauld Institute of Art.