Denis Mahon

Sir Denis Mahon
Born	John Denis Mahon 8 November 1910(1910-11-08) London, England, UK
Died	24 April 2011(2011-04-24) (aged 100)[1]
Nationality	British
Occupation	Art collector and historian
Parents	John FitzGerald Mahon Lady Alice Evelyn Browne

The Fall of Phaeton (c. 1624) by Johann Liss. Denis Mahon collection (on loan to the National Gallery, London)

Sir John Denis Mahon, CH, CBE (8 November 1910 – 24 April 2011) was a British collector and historian of Italian art. Considered to be one of the few art collectors who is also a respected scholar, he is generally credited, alongside Sacheverell Sitwell and Tancred Borenius,^[2] with bringing Italian Baroque painters to the attention of English-speaking audiences, reversing the critical aversion to their work which had prevailed from the time of John Ruskin.

Biography

Mahon was born into a wealthy Anglo-Irish family^[3] and was heir to the Guinness Mahon banking fortune. After attending Eton, he enrolled at Christ Church, Oxford University, where he received an M.A. He spent a year working at the Ashmolean Museum under the supervision of Kenneth Clark, then in 1933 he enrolled at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London. It was here that he was introduced to Italian Baroque painting in a series of lectures by Nikolaus Pevsner, who also gave him private tuition. He bought his first artwork, Guercino's Jacob Blessing the Sons of Joseph in 1934 in Paris for £120. He subsequently met art historian Otto Kurz, whom he frequently used as an Italian translator, in the late 1930s, and together they travelled to Russia to study Italian masters.

Mahon's Studies in Seicento Art and Theory, a series of essays promoting Italian art of the 17th century, was published in 1947. In the 1950s, he became a trustee of the National Gallery. In the 1960s, Mahon and Sir Anthony Blunt became embroiled in a public feud over the iconography of the paintings of Nicolas Poussin, a subject where both were recognized experts who had published extensively on Poussin.^[3]

In the 1990s, Mahon donated his entire art collection to various museums in the United Kingdom, the Pinacoteca Nazionale in Bologna and the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin.^[2]

In a complex legal arrangement, a number of these paintings (such as The Rape of Europa) are on permanent loan from The Art Fund, which owns them. There are two conditions to the loans: that the museums in question never deaccession any of their works, or charge for admission; if either condition is broken the paintings are withdrawn from the museums.^[4]

Mahon was appointed CBE in 1967, and knighted in 1986. He was made a Companion of Honour in 2002 for his services to art, and received honourary doctorates from the universities of Newcastle, Oxford, Rome, and Bologna.

In December 2007, a painting Mahon bought for £50,400 the previous year (and which was considered to be the work of an anonymous follower of Caravaggio) was authenticated by him as a true Caravaggio. It is an early version of the painting The Cardsharps. Mahon turned 100 in November 2010.^[5]

He died on 28 April 2011, aged 100.

References

1. ^ "Sir Denis Mahon obituary". guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2011/apr/28/sir-denis-mahon-obituary. Retrieved 2011-04-28. 
2. ^ ^{a b} "Denis Mahon". Dictionary of Art Historians. http://www.dictionaryofarthistorians.org/mahond.htm. Retrieved 22 May 2010. 
3. ^ ^{a b} Anthony Blunt: His Lives, by Miranda Carter, 2001.
4. ^ Appleyard, Brian (23 February 2003). "The artful codger: Sir Denis Mahon". The Times. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/article877446.ece?token=null&offset=12&page=2. Retrieved 22 May 2010. 
5. ^ "Guercino's "King David" and "The Cumaean Sibyl with Putto" Displayed Together at the National Gallery". ArtDaily. 2010-11-09. http://www.artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=42409. Retrieved 2010-11-15. 

External links

• Profile from the Dictionary of Art Historians
• Article from Times Magazine
• Courtauld Institute of Art newsletter
• Telegraph article on the Caravaggio Discovery
• Obituary of Sir Denis Mahon, The Daily Telegraph, 28 April 2011
• The last interview to Sir Denis Mahon by Egizio Trombetta, Il Giornale dell'Arte

Persondata
Name	Mahon, Denis
Alternative names	Mahon, Johndenis (birthname)
Short description	English art historian and collector
Date of birth	8 November 1910
Place of birth	London, England, UK
Date of death	24 April 2011 (aged 100)
Place of death