April 19, 2023
Arts, Culture
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Despina Geroulanou, the grande dame of the Benaki Museum, passed away on Tuesday at the age of 65. She was the director of the Benaki Museum Galleries, a member of the Board of Trustees of the Benaki Museum, Chairwoman of the Board of Directors of 2023 Eleusis European Capital of Culture.
The cause of death was lung disease and she was hospitalized for a month.
Geroulanou began her career as an actress, at the theater and cinema; studied painting, sculpture and jewelry in Paris, and devoted the bulk of her career to the Benaki Museum, one of Greece’s most prominent cultural institutions. Businessman Antonis Benakis, who founded and endowed the museum in 1930, was her great-grandfather.
Besides her membership of the museum’s Board of Trustees, Geroulanou had been the Director of the Museum Shops since November 1994.
born in Athens in 1958, she was descendant of the Benakis family, daughter of Marinos and Emilia Geroulanou-Kalligas, granddaughter of Antonis Benakis.
She practically grew up in the Benaki Museum.
Her love for arts started from the very first years of her life as she practically grew up in the Benaki Museum. As a teenager she read a lot as she loved literature. Her first studies were at the Faculty of Philosophy of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, where she came into contact with people of art, directors, cinematographers, etc.
Afterwards, she studied at the Drama School of the Greek Art Theater Karolos Koun.
She worked in theater and cinema from 1983 to 1990. She attended painting, sculpture and jewelry classes in Paris and in 1992 organized her first solo jewelry exhibition in Athens. Many individual and group exhibitions followed.
She also worked until 1990 in theater and cinema.