This September, Sotheby’s will auction what it bills as the most valuable private collection ever offered in Europe: Pauline Karpidas: The London Collection, slated to hit the rostrum next month with a £60 million total estimate. A collector, aesthete and formidable patron of the arts, Karpidas moved to London in her 20s to model, but she was clearly never meant to be only a muse. Through the years and in several geographies, she championed artists and designers who defied physical limits, channeled the surreal and wielded irony to critique the absurdities of mass culture.
Karpidas is widely known for surrounding herself with beauty, and guided by forward-thinking taste, an indomitable spirit and irrepressible intellectual curiosity, she has built an entire aesthetic cosmos over decades of collecting. Now, the masterpieces of art and design with which she outfitted her home are headed to auction in London in what promises to be the most valuable single-owner sale ever staged in Europe.
Though she is often compared to Peggy Guggenheim, Pauline Karpidas’ story is singularly fascinating. Born in a working-class neighborhood in Manchester and trained as a secretary, she moved to London before relocating to Athens in the 1970s, where she opened a boutique called My Fair Lady. It was there that she met her husband, Greek shipping magnate Constantine Karpidas, who gave her the freedom and means to become one of the most influential and delightfully eccentric collectors of her time. In 2023, Sotheby’s Paris auctioned works from the couple’s home on the island of Hydra, pulling in more than €35 million ($40 million) across two days, marking the highest-grossing single-owner sale in France that year.
It was in Greece that Karpidas met legendary dealer Alexander Iolas—the man who introduced Warhol to Europe and championed the Surrealists. That encounter opened an entirely new chapter in her life—one driven by art, instinct and an unrelenting belief in the power of imagination. She began supporting the movement’s most visionary creators, drawn to their ability to transcend the real. From then on, Karpidas collected not for show but out of fierce loyalty and genuine connection, often backing artists long before the market took notice.
“Pauline’s collecting has always been guided by instinct and personal conviction, rather than trends or the market,” Oliver Barker, Sotheby’s chairman for Europe, tells Observer. Barker first met Karpidas 35 years ago; since then, the two have formed a close friendship rooted in mutual admiration and shared vision.
A highlight of the upcoming sale is René Magritte’s La Statue volante, estimated at £9-12 million. Described by Sotheby’s as a “jewel of late Surrealism,” the painting is a masterclass in encrypted symbolism and mystery, with a distinguished provenance—it was acquired by Alexander Iolas directly from the artist. Before entering Karpidas’ collection in 1985, the work appeared in two landmark exhibitions that helped cement Magritte’s international reputation: first at Iolas’s New York gallery in 1959 and then in Magritte’s first U.S. museum retrospective at the Dallas Museum of Art in 1960.
“It’s one of the most haunting and significant paintings of his late career, rich in Surrealist iconography and philosophical depth,” says Barker. Remarkably, the evening auction on September 17 includes seven works by Magritte at a moment when his market is at an all-time high. According to Artnet’s annual rankings, Magritte brought in $312.3 million across 119 lots in 2024, a steep rise from $192.7 million and 134 lots in 2023. That surge was fueled in part by a new auction record set in 2024, when L’empire des lumières (1954) sold at Christie’s New York for $121.16 million (with fees)—the highest price ever for a Surrealist work at auction. “No small feat, and testament to Pauline’s remarkable eye,” Barker notes.
Other Magritte works in the sale include Untitled (Le Sens propre) from 1927—previously owned by prominent Surrealist patrons E.L.T. Mesens and Harold Diamond—estimated at £700,000-1,000,000; a haunting bronze chaise longue-coffin titled Madame Récamier de David (£500,000-700,000); and the elegant Les Menottes de cuivre, estimated at £300,000-500,000. Also included are the vibrant blue sculpture Tête (£300,000-500,000), which was acquired at Sotheby’s from the sale of the artist’s widow’s estate and long displayed on Pauline’s eclectic bookshelf, a striking gouache and the whimsical golden sculpture La Race blanche, with £1,000,000-1,500,000 and £250,000-350,000 estimates, respectively.
Beyond Magritte, Karpidas’ collection dives deep into the Surrealist psyche, with standout works by Yves Tanguy, Giorgio De Chirico, Francis Picabia, Victor Brauner, Dorothea Tanning and Hans Bellmer, among others. A delicate drawing, Portrait de Gala Galarina by Salvador Dalí, has an estimate of £350,000-450,000, while another work, Messager dans un paysage Palladien, presents a cryptic figure within a Palladian dreamscape—its swirling, irregular canvas evoking a surreal dialogue with art history—estimated at £200,000-300,000.
“Surrealism caught Pauline’s attention early on,” says Barker, “not just as an art movement, but as a way of seeing the world differently.” The collection as a whole pulses with the tension between beauty and drama, vulnerability and epic fierceness.
When Iolas first introduced Karpidas to Surrealist art while she was living in Athens, he transformed the way she approached collecting, according to Barker. “With her sharp eye, she was never afraid to trust her instincts,” he adds. “Surrealism appealed to her because it could surprise, unsettle and captivate all at once. Its wit, mystery and psychological depth resonated with her on a profound level.”
One of the most anticipated works, following another record-breaking year for the artist, is Leonora Carrington’s The Hour of Angelus—an otherworldly, richly layered painting of a surreal garden scene where elongated, mystical female figures engage in mysterious ritual. The painting was first shown in her debut solo exhibition in Mexico. Estimated conservatively at £600,000-800,000, the work, says Barker, “reveals Pauline’s intuitive eye and spiritual sensibility—a piece that fuses technical brilliance with mythic depth and transformation.” Carrington’s market has surged in recent years, capped by a major record in 2024 when Les Distractions de Dagobert sold at Sotheby’s for $28.5 million, obliterating her previous high of $3.3 million and marking the highest price ever paid for a female Surrealist. Secondary market momentum—driven by sculpture and smaller works—added another $10 million, pushing total Carrington auction turnover for 2024 to an estimated $35-45 million.
Over time, Karpidas expanded her collection to include contemporary artists and designers who carried forward that same spirit of subversion, symbolism and intensity. As new aesthetics emerged, she became a fervent champion of the post-Pop generation whose work both reflected and critiqued the mass-mediated, mass-consumed world they inhabited.
Two other highly anticipated lots are Andy Warhol’s The Scream (After Munch) and Madonna and Self-Portrait with Skeleton’s Arm—haunting, ghostly yet iconic images that linger in the viewer’s mind as stark reminders of the transience and dramatic essence of human existence. Part of Warhol’s “Art from Art” series, they showcase his irreverent appropriation of modern masters, dragging iconic expressions of anguish and sanctity into the glossy, ironic present through a game of visual roleplay. The works carry respectively a £2,000,000-3,000,000 and £1,500,000-2,000,000 estimate. At the collision of Pop and Surrealism is Warhol’s The Poet and His Muse (After de Chirico) (estimate: £600,000-800,000), inspired by a work by the Italian master of Metafisica.
Jeff Koons’s Poodle, estimated at £1,000,000-1,500,000, adds a touch of glamour and a bit of kitsch. The sculpture once stood guard in Karpidas’ entrance hall, stationed beneath a Lalanne console. Karpidas met Koons in the 1980s at the beginning of his career and became an early supporter as he ascended to global stardom.
What sets Pauline Karpidas apart is the depth of engagement behind every acquisition, says Barker. “There’s a strong sense of curiosity and confidence in everything she chooses, and she’s always sought to understand each artist, fully immersing herself in their ideas and collecting with care and conviction.” Because of those deep relationships, the provenance of many of her works is exceptional—several of her Surrealist pieces once belonged to the movement’s founding figures, including André Breton, Roland Penrose and Paul Éluard.
While Surrealism is a central thread of the collection, Karpidas has never limited herself to a single movement or medium. “She collected in depth across both fine art and design, bringing these two worlds together with boldness and imagination,” says Barker. In addition to artworks, she also assembled an extraordinary trove of design pieces by some of the most pioneering figures of her time.
Also going to auction is Karpidas’ trove of sixty works by Les Lalanne—many of them never-before-seen commissions made specifically for her and some gifted directly by the artists themselves. Barker points to Claude Lalanne’s Unique Choupette, described as “an icon in its own right,” with an estimate of £300,000-400,000. Other highlights include her rare crocodile stools, never before seen on the market (£180,000-250,000), a lyrical Unique Structure Végétale mirror and wall light (£350,000-450,000) and an ornate flower-motif bed with Karpidas’ beloved owl symbol (£200,000-300,000).
Karpidas’ connection to Les Lalanne ran deep—she was a passionate early supporter, visiting their Paris workshop long before their work achieved global fame, and the French duo’s creations became essential to the immersive, surreal environments Karpidas built in her homes.
Rare, largely unseen pieces by Les Lalanne are joined by striking works from other key designers in her orbit, including Mattia Bonetti and André Dubreuil. “These weren’t accessories, but living components of her world—playful, surreal and completely personal,” Barker says. “Her homes were never showrooms, but living, breathing, imaginative spaces where art was embedded in daily life.” The result is a collection that speaks to a life steeped in creativity, curiosity and enduring relationships with the artists and designers she championed.
To honor that spirit, Sotheby’s London will stage a fully immersive exhibition recreating Karpidas’ singular world. Complete with an indoor Les Lalanne garden, the show runs from September 8-17 at Sotheby’s Mayfair galleries, ahead of the Evening, Day and Online auctions on September 17, 18 and 19.
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