Shipping chief Irene Panagopoulos brings diaspora-focused collection to London for Frieze week

A shipping-company president who collects work by women and artists of the Greek diaspora has brought 17 works from her collection near Athens to London for Frieze week.

Irene Y. Panagopoulos, president of the family shipping company Magna Marine Inc, is showing works from her collection in Revisiting: Fernweh, or Nostalgia for Unknown Lands at the Hellenic Centre in Marylebone, central London, according to The Art Newspaper. The display was organised to coincide with Frieze London, the annual contemporary art fair in Regent's Park.

The show brings together 15 international artists, the venue says on its event page. The 17 works on view include pieces by Kader Attia, Vlassis Caniaris, Brice Marden and Thomas Struth. The Hellenic Centre describes the exhibition as exploring Greece both as place and idea, where past and present meet through the act of looking.

Panagopoulos was born in London and studied at Mills College at Northeastern University in Oakland, California. Her father, Pericles Panagopoulos, collected Modern art. She told The Art Newspaper her own collection focuses on women and creators from the Greek diaspora, and is housed in Voula, just outside Athens.

Her collecting started with Lucas Samaras's Reconstruction #93 (1979). Samaras, a Greek-born American artist known for manipulated photographic images, remains a reference point for her. The most recent addition she named is One Hundred and Forty Paths (2026) by Vangelis Savvas.

The collection itself is broad. Works range from the 16th century to the present day, according to Galerie Magazine. Panagopoulos opened a namesake art space for the collection in 2025.

She also supports projects at the Museum of Cycladic Art in Athens and the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Athens, the Greek pavilion at the Venice Biennale, the international art exhibition held in Venice, as well as Tate in London and the Delfina Foundation in London, which runs residency programmes for artists.

What makes this stop stand out on a crowded Frieze-week calendar is access. Private collections of this kind are often seen by appointment only. Here, visitors can walk in and see how one collector links older material with new commissions and diaspora voices in a single room.

The Hellenic Centre lists viewing hours for the exhibition as 11:00 to 17:00, Monday 12 to Sunday 18 October.