Collector Dasha Shenkman on buying less, giving more, and funding new art for museums

“I’ve learnt that I can’t buy everything I like.” That is how Canadian-born, UK-based collector Dasha Shenkman sums up her approach to collecting. She set it out in an interview published on 16 October 2026, as reported by The Art Newspaper.

Shenkman previously worked as a literary agent. She has donated more than 40 works to museums and public collections. Her late mother, Belle Shenkman, has rooms named after her at the Royal Academy of Arts in London and the Royal College of Music in London.

She started small. Her first purchase was a Jean Arp lithograph from the Mira Godard gallery in Montreal. She paid for it in instalments.

Her most recent purchase was closer to home. It was Book of Two Ways by artist Neil Groom, bought from a Hypha Curates pop-up near Euston station in London. Small buys still sit beside the museum gifts.

Shenkman has now put her name to a fund that helps others buy. She launched the Dasha Shenkman Focus Fund alongside the Contemporary Art Society in London, a charity that buys art for public collections. The fund helps a public institution buy a young artist’s work from Focus, the section of Frieze London for younger galleries and newer practices.

In its first year, the fund acquired three works by London artist Okiki Akinfe, as noted by Frieze. The purchase was made at Frieze London 2026. The works will go to the collection of Abbot Hall in Kendal, Cumbria.

Akinfe was also named winner of the inaugural £30,000 emerging artist prize at Frieze London. The Shenkman fund joins longstanding Frieze fair awards and acquisitions linked to Tate in London, Frieze, the Arts Council and others.

What makes this stand out is the chain. A collector who once paid in instalments now helps a regional museum buy new work straight from a fair. The paperwork moves, and the public gets to stand in front of the result.