Paper Chase

Photo by Kent Pell, courtesy Phillips de Pury & Company

Latest additions to editions: Cary Leibowitz and …

Photo by Kent Pell, courtesy Phillips de Pury & Company

Kelly Troester head up Phillips’s new prints department.

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The boutique firm recently hired Kelly Troester and Cary Leibowitz away from Christie’s New York to cohead its new international department of modern and contemporary editions, with Troester handling the former category and Leibowitz overseeing the latter. “Once Phillips approached us,” says Troester, “they were surprised they hadn’t done a prints department sooner than this.”

The market for prints has grown in recent years, both as a starting point for beginning buyers and as an alternative for collectors who have been priced out of the skyrocketing modern and contemporary paintings market. “The great thing about prints” says Leibowitz, “is their accessibility.”

Being late to the party hasn’t stopped Phillips from making a head-turning entrance. Troester and Leibowitz not only named their department “editions,” instead of “prints,” but also decided that their inaugural sale would not coincide with those at other houses, in late April. Instead, it will take place on May 21, a week after Phillips’s contemporary sales, with potential consignments ranging from works by Jean Dubuffet to Pablo Picasso to Kiki Smith. Is this a harbinger of a modern department at Phillips? Never say never.

"Paper Chase" originally appeared in the February 2008 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's February 2008 Table of Contents.