Despina Geroulanou, a Benaki Museum Trustee, dies at 65

Despina Geroulanou, member of the Benaki Museum Board of Trustees and, recently, Chairwoman of the Board of Directors of 2023 Eleusis European Capital of Culture, has died at the age of 65.

The cause of death was lung disease; she had been 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.