Tycoon Dimitris Daskalopoulos gives away huge haul of modern art

Helen Chadwick’s Piss Flowers 1-12, 1991, at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh in a 2012 exhibition of works from Dimitris Daskalopolous’s collection. Photograph: John McKenzie/National Galleries of Scotland

In his airy office in north Athens, Dimitris Daskalopoulos likes to point out his Ego piece that can easily go unnoticed on a back wall.

Seen from afar, the three letters integral to the painting are faintly discernible, but what the art collector takes particular delight in is how they disappear when seen at no distance at all. “Look,” he says, his eyes twinkling as he appreciates the work close-up. “The ego has gone, there’s nothing to see, nothing at all.”