Tracey Emin, An Insane desire For you, 2019. Modern & Contemporary Art Evening Sale, London.
As collectors at any level, we often feel a certain thrill whenever we have the chance to admire the works assembled by others, exploring how they form a dialogue with each other, a narrative arc, or showcase the tastes and inner workings of another collector’s eye. Far from mere comparison, considering different collections also helps us find the sense of permission we need to continue pursuing our own.
And that’s why we love the selection A Life of Collecting: Works from an Important Belgian Collector Couple so much. Comprised of a multitude of works across our upcoming live and online auctions in London, with further works on offer at the Belgian auction house Zouave, new discoveries await us at each turn. As our eyes take in each work, we can sense this couple’s passion for art and their role as stewards, which naturally reminds us of our own.
Modern & Contemporary Art Evening Sale, London >
Modern & Contemporary Art, London >
Modern & Contemporary Art: Online Auction, London >
Tracey Emin, An Insane desire For you, 2019. Modern & Contemporary Art Evening Sale, London.
Leading the selection is Tracey Emin’s 2019 work An Insane desire For you, which showcases the artist’s unapologetically direct expression of the self. Since emerging in the early ‘90s alongside the wave of Young British Artists (YBA), Emin is now firmly cemented in the contemporary canon. Represented by White Cube, Xavier Hufkens, and Galleria Lorcan O’Neill, her current momentum is highlighted by A Second Life — a landmark 2026 exhibition at the Tate Modern, opening February 2026. An Insane desire For you explores the interrelationship of love and intense passion, playing out against the pink vista of the Ibiza Old Town. The work was included in Emin’s solo presentation at Art Projects Ibiza in 2019, and a comparable 2024 work, The End of Love, is now held in the Tate Collection.
Rebecca Warren, Fascia V, 2012. Modern & Contemporary Art Evening Sale, London.
No less noteworthy is the 2012 work Fascia V by Rebecca Warren, which highlights this couple’s interest in women artists who were often associated with the YBA movement and, crucially, what their 21st-century works reveal about the evolution of the contemporary art world since the ‘90s. Her intriguing and tactile sculptures, like the present work, strike a balance between the sublime nature of abstract forms and suggestions of the human figure. Nominated for the Turner Prize in 2026 and elected to the Royal Academy of Arts as a Royal Academician in 2013, Warren was awarded an OBE in 2020.
Glenn Brown, Drawing 2 (after Delacroix/Raphaël), 2019. Modern & Contemporary Art, London.
From Rebecca Warren’s loosely humanistic abstract form, we discover another angle to the couple’s collection — an interest in works that distort human figures for artistic ends. Across works by artists like Glenn Brown, Philip Guston, and Peter Saul, we find invigorating approaches to depicting human figures, at times playful and at others, deeply political.
Philip Guston, Untitled, 1976. Modern & Contemporary Art, London.
“There is nothing to do now but paint my life; my dreams, surroundings, predicament, desperation, Musa – love, need…If someone bursts out laughing in front of my painting, that is exactly what I want and expect.”
—Philip Guston
Peter Saul, The Last Smoke, 2021. Modern & Contemporary Art, London.
Across all the works in this selection, we can lose a sense of time, place, and figure purely in visual terms. Ranging from 20th century to contemporary works, we discover an approach to looking back in time — both to the Old Masters, in the works by Victor Man, Glenn Brown, and others, and to ancient cultures, felt in the forms of Rebecca Warren and Solange Pesoa. Yet there are far more connections to discover and unpack in this selection, and every collector will find something different to appreciate, both across our London sales and at the Zouave sale.
A Life of Collecting: Works from an Important Belgian Collector Couple will be on view from 26 February to 7 March at 30 Berkeley Square.
Discover more from Modern & Contemporary Art >
Recommended Reading
The Collection of Ambassador John L. Loeb Jr. >