Delfina Entrecanales

Entrecanales' death, at the age of 94, was confirmed on 1 April 2022. No cause of death was given.

She was the founder and Chairwoman Emeritus of the Delfina Foundation, an independent not-for-profit organisation devoted to supporting artists through a residency programme and exhibition space in London. She retired from the Board of Trustees in 2020.

In recognition of her contribution to the arts, Entrecanales was made a Commander of Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the Queen's Birthday Honours in 2012, the year of the Diamond Jubilee, and she was also the recipient of The Prince of Wales Medal for Philanthropy in the Arts in 2013. In 2016, a Spanish association of female entrepreneurs (Asociación Mujer Siglo XXI de Empresarias de Bilbao) also gave her an award for her patronage work. She retired from the Board of Trustees of the Delfina Foundation in 2020.

After the end of her second marriage, Entrecanales withdrew from her activity as a patron for some time but then in 2005, during a trip to Syria with her close friend and international human rights lawyer Mark Muller, she decided to resume her work supporting artists. In 2007, the Delfina Foundation opened to the public, housed in an Edwardian building near Victoria, in central London. Although initially it had a particular focus on Middle Eastern and North African artists, the work of the foundation is no longer limited to any specific geographical focus.

In 1988 the Delfina Studio Trust opened its doors at a former jeans factory in Stratford, east London. Four years later, it moved to a bigger space in Bermondsey Street, a former chocolate factory that after being refurbished provided accommodation, studio rooms, a gallery and a canteen where artists could eat for £1. A long list of artists were supported by the Delfina Studio Trust, including Glenn Brown, Jane & Louise Wilson, Keith Tyson, Mark Francis, Mark Wallinger, Tacita Dean, Thomas Demand and Tomoko Takahashi, among many others. Some of those artists later became winners or finalists of some of the most prestigious awards in the sector, including the Turner Prize.

When her marriage ended, after 20 years, she decided to stay in England, instead of returning to Spain, and became a socialite and a patron. In the 1970s, she bought a farm with several cottages in Little Bedwin, Wiltshire, where she hosted a number of musicians, providing them with accommodation and space to work. She first offered to her friend Robert Wyatt, formerly of the band Soft Machine, the possibility to set up his recording studio at the farm while he was recovering from an accident. The resultant album was Rock Bottom, released in 1974, which included musical performances by Ivor Cutler, Hugh Hopper, Richard Sinclair, Laurie Allan, Mike Oldfield and Fred Frith, and was produced by Pink Floyd's Nick Mason.

María Delfina Entrecanales de Azcárate CBE (10 April 1927 – 1 April 2022) was a Spanish-British arts patron and philanthropist, established in England since 1946.

Entrecanales was born on 10 April 1927, into an affluent family, in southern Spain, the first child of industrialist José Entrecanales Ibarra [es] and María de Azcárate. Her father, an engineer, was the founder of the company known today as Acciona and her mother came from a progressive family linked to the Institución Libre de Enseñanza.