Auctioneer to the Stars Simon de Pury Launches New Series
MILAN — Swiss auction star Simon de Pury and his avatar are gearing up to launch the first edition of a new themed series.
“CREATE! – 21st Century Architecture & Design.” will be cast on de Pury’s online auction platform de Pury on Sunday. The event will push works by fashion and design icons such as Rick Owens, Tom Dixon, British-Israeli industrial designer Ron Arad and Polish-American architect Daniel Libeskind to the fore.
More from WWD
De Pury’s auctions and private sales offer pieces that are hallmarks of contemporary culture poised to fetch anywhere between $100 to $100 million.
The inaugural auction, “WOMEN — Art in Times of Chaos,” in 2022 was the first online auction to take place on the de Pury platform. The firm said that the event was well received and attracted and engaged the attention of a new generation of collectors who are shaping the industry.
Among the rare works available to the public in the July auction will be the Rick Owens Curial aluminum chair, which has reverberated around social media and beyond. According to Kim Kardashian’s Instagram page, the mega influencer owns her own version of the chair.
The company also added that Arad is consigning a brand-new work made especially for the auction — a variation on his previous design for the D Sofa, one of the most influential designs of his career. A prototype of the D Sofa was previously sold at Phillips auction house for more than 1 million pounds.
De Pury will continue to launch a themed series each month under names like FIRE, KAWAII and PARADISE LOST, through de-pury.com. A spokesperson for the company said that philanthropy is a major pillar of the platform and 3 percent of the buyer’s premium, or charges added on in addition to the hammer price of each sale, will be allocated to philanthropic causes close to the firm, including public cultural institutions, charities and nonprofit organizations.
In a statement, the auctioneer reflected on the success of “WOMEN — Art in Times of Chaos” and expressed confidence in the reception of this new series and a new generation of collectors. “I was thrilled to see that a new wave of collectors from different ages and geographies, all of which were new clients for us, liked our innovative way of doing things and were entertained by my avatar who was conducting the auction,” he said.
