Explore the remarkable collecting journey of Pauline Karpidas, one of the most influential art patrons of the past fifty years, to reflect on her unique eye, friendships with artists, and the broader role of women as cultural custodians. From Peggy Guggenheim to Dominique de Menil and beyond, women collectors have long shaped the direction of modern and contemporary art. What drives them? How do personal connections influence collecting? And how does a home become a curated world?

Tiqui Atencio Demirdjian is a Venezuelan-born and Monaco-based collector, author and cultural philanthropist. She is the founder of Tate’s Latin American Acquisition Committee, Trustee Emeritus of the Tate America’s Foundation, and President Emeritus of the former Guggenheim’s International Council and Honorary Member of its Constellation Council. She is also a member of the associations of friends of the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, and le Nouveau Musée National de Monaco. In 2016 Tiqui published her first book, Could Have, Would Have, Should Have : Inside the World of the Art Collector. In 2020 she started the For Art’s Sake series, publishingFor Art’s Sake: Inside the Homes of Art Dealers and in 2024 Inside the Home’s of Artists: For Art’s Sake. In 2024 together with her husband Ago Demirdjian she founded the Mustique Caribbean Contemporary Art Show & Prize Biennial. This initiative provides support and exposure to emerging Caribbean Artists. Tiqui is a collector of Latin American, Modern and Contemporary Art and Design.

Kate Bryan is an arts broadcaster and Chief Art Director for Soho House. For the past nine years at Soho House she has been custodian to a collection that numbers over 10,000 artworks on permanent display across 17 countries. She oversees all new acquisitions and leads the company’s art strategy. She is a long-standing arts presenter, writing and presenting television programmes for BBC, Sky Arts and Sky Arte Italia since 2013. She is a judge on the long-running programmes Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year and Landscape Artist of The Year. In June 2019 Bryan published her first book, The Art of Love, and her second, Bright Stars was published in 2021. In September 2025 Penguin will publish her latest book, How to Art which is illustrated by David Shrigley. In 2014 she won the Arts category in the Women of the Future Awards and is a mentor for young artists from under-represented backgrounds.

Since joining Sotheby’s in 1988, Helena has been at the forefront of the global expansion of the Impressionist and Modern Art market. In addition to her role as Chairman, specialist and business getter, Helena also plays an important role on the rostrum at Sotheby’s. In July 2016, she became the first woman to take an evening sale since 1990, and she remains the only female auctioneer in the business to preside over these prestigious sales. A role model for aspiring female auctioneers, Helena has brought down the hammer on many landmark occasions (in New York in 2018, she brought down the hammer on the highest value work ever sold at Sotheby’s, and she has similarly presided over the highest value sale ever staged in London). As a classically trained violinist, with an innate sense of the performing skills necessary to command a room, Helena is at the vanguard of women in the art world who are blazing the trail in their industry.

Helena lives in Notting Hill with her husband, who is a musician, and their two children.

Jasper Sharp is a British curator and art historian. He began his career in 1999 with an internship at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, and went on to become the museum's Head of Exhibitions and Collections. After moving to Vienna in 2006, he worked at Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary before joining the Kunsthistorisches Museum as the first Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art in the museum’s history. Tasked with developing a new programme of exhibitions and artist talks, he curated more than twenty projects over 10 years including surveys of Lucian Freud, Joseph Cornell and Mark Rothko, and groundbreaking presentations of the museum’s historical collections with Ed Ruscha, Edmund de Waal, Wes Anderson and Juman Malouf. He was the commissioner of the Austrian Pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale in 2013, the founding curator of Frieze Masters Talks, and has curated exhibitions and contributed catalogue essays for institutions including the Royal Academy, London; Fondazione Prada, Milan; Kunstmuseum Basel; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; National Gallery, London; and Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, among others. In 2014, he co-founded Phileas in Vienna and is now a member of its International Advisory Board.