“My collectors are friends… I adore people that have the sublime, the divine about them,” the legendary gallerist Alexander Iolas told Vogue France in 1965. Iolas, who championed Surrealism and is credited with discovering Warhol, could have been talking about British-born collector Pauline Karpidas; although in fact, he didn’t meet her until 1974, by which time he had retired. That year Karpidas, captivated by the masterpieces in Iolas’s Athens mansion, embarked on her own collecting journey, and convinced the veteran dealer to act as her mentor. That their encounter was sufficient to draw him back into the art world was testament not only to Karpidas’s charisma, but also to her unique drive as a collector – one which has affinities with creative genius itself.
This September, 250 pieces from Karpidas’s extraordinary London home will be auctioned by Sotheby’s. Promising to fetch around £60 million, the sale is billed as the highest-value single-owner collection to be offered by the auction house in Europe, and includes works by Warhol, Picasso and Dalí alongside bespoke design-art pieces by Les Lalanne, Mattia Bonetti and London designer Francis Sultana. Karpidas herself is now 81 and living in the US. “This sale represents a moment of transition - an opportunity to redirect her focus toward new artistic horizons,” says Oliver Barker, chairman of Sotheby’s Europe. “She continues to be engaged in the contemporary art world with the same curiosity and generosity that has always defined her approach.”
Among the great collectors of the 20th century, what makes Karpidas stand out? Well, for one thing, unlike so many – Peggy Guggenheim, say, or Carlos de Beistegui – she didn’t come from money or nobility. She grew up in a two-up, two-down house in Manchester, attending secretarial college before making her first original move: upping sticks for Greece, where she opened a boutique. It was here that she met her husband, shipping and construction magnate Constantine “Dinos” Karpidas, who was an accomplished collector of 19th-century and Impressionist art. Dinos not only kickstarted his wife’s creative impulse, but also offered her the resources to nurture it.
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Even with Iolas’s guidance in the mix, however, Karpidas’s achievement is hers alone. With boundless intellectual verve, she transformed herself into a connoisseur, visiting galleries and reading widely on art history, philosophy and psychoanalysis. The well-thumbed volumes on her bespoke bronze-and-timber bookcase by Mattia Bonetti – which is part of the sale, estimated at £50,000-£70,000 – are witness to her erudition. She also befriended the many tastemakers she encountered. Les Lalanne, Paloma Picasso and even the notoriously elusive Andy Warhol were among her confidants.
Karpidas’s home near Hyde Park was a kind of gesamtkunstverk. “She is like Peggy Guggenheim, consumed by a deep devotion for art and the strong conviction that she has no boundaries,” says Sultana, who credits her with shaping his own aesthetic. The London home was their final project together. “Its interiors were almost like an artwork to her; they carried an idea or inspiration,” he remembers. “On many occasions, I was the medium to translate her desires. Some were eccentric and surreal, and always beyond normal expectations.”
As bold and baroque in spirit as its owner, the house juxtaposed colourful artworks with tiger carpets and leopard upholstery, courtesy of renowned French decorator Jacques Grange. “There was a sense of complicity between us, marked by complete freedom; her home was a perfect reflection of that,” says Grange. “Everything was conceived with a great sense of whimsy.” Barker notes that Karpidas’s homes “feel like extensions of her intellect: thoughtful, layered, and unafraid to challenge convention”.
Visitors to the exhibition that precedes the sale at Sotheby’s in New Bond Street will experience a recreation of this milieu. “The galleries will undergo a complete transformation - an immersive takeover that invites visitors to step into a world inspired by Pauline’s magical, whimsical interiors,” says Barker. “Expect tiger-print carpets, bold colours, and iconic works by Les Lalanne - many created especially for Pauline - set within an otherworldly garden.” The Les Lalannes in question include an owl-adorned bed and a model of the eerily realistic Crocodile Stools (estimate £180,000-£250,000) that has never previously been offered for sale. “The exhibition will be unlike anything we’ve ever staged in our London galleries, blurring the line between gallery and home,” adds Barker.
Just as interesting as the pieces Karpidas owned is the fact that many have passed through famous hands, shining a light on the history of patronage. Yves Tanguy’s 1929 Surrealist landscape Titre Inconnu (estimate £1m-£1.5m) formerly belonged to French author Raymond Queneau; a gouache by René Magritte, La Race Blanche (estimate £1m-£1.5m), was once the property of Belgian Surrealist dealer E.L.T. Mesens, who popularised the artist’s work in Britain.
The sale reveals complex layers of artistic inspiration – Warhol works based on canvases by his idol Edvard Munch, for instance, and Leonora Carrington’s 1949 painting The Hour of Angelus (estimate £600,000-£800,000), which draws on Renaissance religious art. What emerges is Karpidas’s perception that, with art, past, present and future are forever intertwined. “Now, the world will understand what Pauline was - an artist herself, in every sense of the word,” concludes Sultana.
Pauline Karpidas: The London Collection, exhibition from September 8; auctions September 17 and 18; sothebys.com/karpidas
