Monsoon Peter Simon Collection

Event date 14 - 20 October
Event location London

This October, Christie’s is proud to present Monsoon: The Peter Simon Collection as part of the London 20th/21st Century Art series.

The highest-value single-owner collection ever offered at Christie’s London, Monsoon brings together nearly 200 works from the personal collection of Peter Simon, founder of Monsoon and Accessorize.

Joyful, adventurous and alive with colour, the collection spans Modernism to contemporary painting and reflects Simon’s instinctive eye for craft and design. This passion was shaped over a lifetime, and inspired in part by his extensive travels through India, where the textiles and colours he encountered helped define Monsoon’s distinctive creative identity.

Highlights include extraordinary works by Francis Bacon, Piet Mondrian, Joan Miró, Andy Warhol, Pablo Picasso, Hurvin Anderson and Bridget Riley — bringing together some of the most celebrated artists of the 20th and 21st centuries.

The collection will be offered across evening, day and online sales in October 2026. The full collection will be on view from 26 September - 1 October, with highlights on view from 8-14 October at Christie's London.

Highlights

About Peter Simon

A man in black sits on a modern red chair in front of a geometric blue wall art.

Peter Simon’s instinct for colour, craft and discovery has shaped both his career and his art collection. After an early spell in advertising, he dropped out to travel, journeying through Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan to India, where the hand-block printed textiles of Rajasthan inspired the beginnings of Monsoon.

What began with Simon selling handcrafted clothes on London market stalls grew into Monsoon Accessorize, a hugely successful global business. His passion for art came later, sparked in the mid-1990s by an encounter with works by Howard Hodgkin and Francis Bacon. Initially drawn to British Modernists including Barbara Hepworth, Ben Nicholson and Peter Lanyon, Simon developed an increasingly international collection spanning artists from Latin America, Africa and Asia alongside major figures of European and American modern and contemporary art. Across the collection, the same qualities recur: a fascination with colour, texture, composition and cultural exchange, and the adventurous, outward-looking spirit that has defined Simon’s life and work.

Exhibition

A dimly lit art gallery displays several modern abstract paintings in gold frames on dark walls.

Location
Christie’s London
8 King St., St. James’s
London, SW1Y 6QT

Viewing
Full exhibition
26 September – 1 October

Highlights exhibition
8–14 October

Monday – Friday, 9am – 5pm
Saturday & Sunday, 12pm – 5pm

Contact
+44 (0) 20 7839 9060
info@christies.com

© 2026 The Estate of Francis Bacon. All rights reserved, DACS.
© 2026 Alighiero Boetti, DACS.
© 2026 The Willem de Kooning Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York and DACS, London.
© 2026 Successió Miró / ADAGP, Paris and DACS London
Peter Simon. Photo: Shutterstock.

Highlights

Take a closer look at the St Ives School

Monsoon: The Peter Simon Collection catalogue

About Peter Simon

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Exhibition

20th/21st Century London

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