Emma Menell's Tyburn Foundation Supports African Artists

(MENAFN- USA Art News) South African collector Emma Menell established the Tyburn Foundation, a nonprofit headquartered in Umbria, Italy, building on the legacy of her previous gallery. The foundation aims to support artists from Africa and its diaspora in a less commercial context, prioritizing sustainable growth through curatorial engagements, residencies, and patronage.

Menell founded the Tyburn Gallery in London in 2015 to provide a platform for African artists. After its closure four years later, the gallery had gained a reputation for nurturing emerging talents, some of whom, like Kudzanai-Violet Hwami and Moffat Takadiwa (a 2026 Toyota Tsusho CFAO African Art Award winner), have since achieved international recognition. Six years after the gallery closed, Menell launched the nonprofit with a similar mission.

“I wanted to continue working closely with emerging and mid-career artists from Africa in a less commercial context that prioritized slow, sustainable growth through curatorial engagements, residencies and meaningful patronage,” Menell told Observer.“The Foundation emerged from a desire to create a structure that supports artists' practices over time free from the pressures of the market, with space for deeper reflection, experimentation and exchange. The present challenges facing galleries have further strengthened my commitment to the Tyburn model.”

The foundation's program focuses on long-term artist support within a community-driven environment, fostering collaboration, research, exchange, and experimentation across Europe and Africa. Current residencies include La Foce in the Niconne Valley and Civitella Ranieri, a 15th-century castle, both in Umbria. Another is the Bridge Visual Arts Residency in Zimbabwe, a collaboration with the Animal Farm Artist Residency, founded by Zimbabwean artist Admire Kamudzengerere.

Menell explained that this approach allows the foundation to“bridge geographies and offer visibility and validation outside traditional Western-centric circuits while still engaging critically within them,” also highlighting“the multiplicity of creative voices shaping the contemporary moment and to engage in the reframing of how artistic excellence is understood.”

After a residency at La Foce in May 2025, Zimbabwean South African artist Michele Mathison spent an extended period exploring the local landscape, materials, craftspeople, and history. His resulting work, Verso il Cielo, is an installation of 55 travertine pillars in an ancient forest clearing that examines themes of materiality, memory, and cultural exchange between southern Africa and Italy. The installation opened to the public a year later, coinciding with the 2026 Venice Biennale, reflecting the foundation's slow, deadline-free approach to artistic production.

In mid- October 2025, the Tyburn Foundation held its debut exhibition,“Quiet Grounds,” at PIASA, an 18th-century mansion on Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré in Paris. The exhibition, which coincided with that year's Art Basel Paris, featured works by Mathison, Zimbabwean artist Primrose Panashe Chingandu, South African artist Driaan Claassen, and South African artist Mbali Tshabalala, all drawn from their residencies in spring and summer 2025. This year's residents include Ghanaian artist Gideon Appah, Zimbabwean artist Option Dzikamai Nyahunzvi, and Tunisian-French artist Mouna Karray.

When asked how lessons from the gallery era inform her leadership of the foundation, Menell stated,“Founding and running Tyburn Gallery heightened my understanding of the pressures faced by artists in the commercial art world and the challenges of forging a career, challenges which have grown as result of the current structural, economic and cultural shifts and have underlined the fragility of traditional gallery models.” She added,“Tyburn [Foundation]'s understanding of the commercial art world helps us to mentor and support artists in their practices. At the core of our ethos is a commitment to international partnerships, collaboration and the fostering of community networks.” The foundation's advisory board includes Kami Gahiga, Art Basel's VIP representative for Africa Regions, and Azu Nwagbogu, founder and director of LagosPhoto Festival and African Artists Foundation.

Menell left South Africa in 1988 for the United Kingdom, where she earned a doctorate in International Relations from the Inns of Court School of Law at the University of Oxford and qualified as a barrister. She returned to South Africa in the late 1990s, a period she described as“fascinating and vibrant,” during which she encountered the work of artists such as William Kentridge and David Koloane. These artists explored not only opposition to apartheid, a government system that segregated whites and Blacks, but also other societal issues.

“The period as a whole characterized a movement from protest art at the start of the decade into more complex reflections on memory, identity, trauma and nation-building in the later years,” Menell recalled. During this time, Menell worked as a lawyer in Johannesburg, and a new constitution promoting an equitable society with human rights was formulated. This aligned with her interests in geopolitics, power structures, and societal organization, themes also explored by contemporary African artists. Her collecting journey began in the early 2000s with a piece by Kentridge.

Her collection now comprises over 200 works by artists including Zanele Muholi, Kudzanai-Violet Hwami, Amy Sherald, Alberta Whittle, and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, as well as former Tyburn Foundation residents Chingandu, Claassen, Mathison, and Tshabalala. Menell, also a patron of the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary African Art, explained her role:“Running the foundation is primarily about facilitation, creating the conditions for dialogue and growth, bridging continents, fostering networks and encouraging artists to think expansively about their practices within a global context.”

She emphasized the importance of residencies, stating,“Residencies provide the rare gift of time and space, conditions that allow artists to take risks without fear of failure. Stepping outside one's established medium can open up unexpected pathways. This kind of experimentation is often where the most profound developments occur. The foundation exists to hold space for that kind of growth, encouraging artists to push boundaries in ways that might not be possible within the constraints of commercial or institutional frameworks.” Looking ahead, the Tyburn Foundation is actively exploring new partnerships within Africa, and Menell expressed enthusiasm for creating a residency program spanning additional geographies.

Source: Observer Arts

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