2025 Gala Honorees
The Phillips Collection salutes this year's esteemed honorees:
Mirella and Dani Levinas
In Memoriam
Chair Emeritus and Champions of Contemporary Art
Mirella and Dani Levinas transformed the cultural landscape of Washington, DC. As collectors, they built a remarkable collection spanning multiple continents and perspectives. As philanthropists, they championed educational programs that opened doors for thousands. And as leaders, they helped guide The Phillips Collection with vision and passion—Dani as Chair of our Board of Trustees, and Mirella, ever at his side with enthusiasm—embodying Duncan Phillips's ideals of art as a bridge across cultures and generations.
During his tenure as Chair of the Board from 2016 to 2022, Dani played a key role in broadening the museum’s focus on contemporary art, community engagement, and diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion (DEAI). His leadership made possible the groundbreaking exhibition The Warmth of Other Suns in 2019, which shared poignant stories about global displacement. Beyond the museum, his work as a writer, publisher, and curator brought greater visibility to contemporary Latin American artists and encouraged The Phillips Collection to embrace a more global and inclusive vision.
Dindga McCannon
Philadelphia-based Artist
and Founding Member of Where We At Black Women Artists Collective
For six decades, Dindga McCannon has illuminated the art world through her work as a painter, printmaker, fiber artist, writer, muralist, and illustrator of books for young adults. In 1971, she co-founded Where We At Black Women Artists with Kay Brown and Faith Ringgold, creating opportunities for countless Black women artists during the collective’s remarkable 25-year history. She has also been a long-serving member of the Weusi Artist Collective, a Harlem-based group that remains a major force in today’s Black Arts Movement.
Most recently, McCannon completed Towards a Brighter Tomorrow!—a powerful mural painted in collaboration with incarcerated individuals at Rikers Island. Her work is a collection of visual stories focusing on the unknown and overlooked as well as renowned African Americans and other people of color, especially women; McCannon draws inspiration from their achievements despite great odds—stories she calls inspiring, amazing, and uplifting. Her work is held in the collections of The Phillips Collection, the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and more.
Jarl Mohn
2025 Duncan Phillips Award Recipient
President Emeritus at NPR, Art Collector, and Philanthropist
Jarl Mohn has spent over 50 years shaping media, philanthropy, and the arts. From his start as a teenage disc jockey to key roles at MTV/VH-1, and later as founder and CEO of E! Entertainment Television, he helped to define modern media with expertise and vision.
In 1999, he founded Liberty Digital, a publicly traded company that invested in online businesses and cable networks. He later spent 13 years in venture capital, supporting early-stage companies. In 2014, he returned to the non-profit world as President & CEO of NPR, a role he held until 2019.
Through The Mohn Family Foundation, he and his wife, Pamela, support social justice, transition age foster youth, public radio, and visual art institutions in LA County. In 2024 they created the Mohn Art Collective, “MAC3,” an unprecedented joint venture, by donating over 350 works of emerging LA artists to be shared equally by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; and the Hammer Museum, along with an endowment to support the continued growth and care of the shared collection. This groundbreaking approach, which centers direct support for the artist community, reshapes institutional collaboration in the contemporary art world.
In addition, Mohn has served on the board of trustees of KPCC Southern California Public Radio, USC Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism, and EW Scripps Company and Scripps Networks.