Inside the home of Pauline Karpidas, the art-world ‘grande dame’ who could be the last of her kind

By Jacqui Palumbo, CNN

(CNN) — Behind the elegant but unassuming entryway to an apartment near London’s Hyde Park, one of Europe’s most prominent collectors has amassed a remarkable trove of Surrealist and postwar art in a home bursting with color and eclectic design.

Now in her 80s, Pauline Karpidas is selling nearly all of the art and custom furniture housed in her dwelling, where major contemporary artists and other cultural figures have socialized among works by René Magritte, Salvador Dalí, Yves Tanguy, Max Ernst, Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol.

As a patron, she’s been an influential and connecting force in the art world for decades, yet Karpidas has remained a private figure who rarely speaks to press. But her upcoming sale, expected to fetch some £60 million, ($79.6 million), wil