An auctioneer for Sotheby's and an art dealer through Swiss gallery de Pury & Luxembourg, de Pury bought Phillips from LVMH chief Bernard Arnaud in 2004. After jettisoning the house's Impressionist division, de Pury worked on transforming the company from a sleepy clearinghouse of British estates into a scrappy upstart with a focus on contemporary works. One of his first moves—installing his girlfriend at the time, millionaire publisher Louise MacBain, as CEO—ended with MacBain leaving the company. But de Pury persevered, pushing boundaries of how, when, where, and to whom to sell art. He launched the careers of edgy young artists like Terence Koh—in part through a gallery he co-owns in Zurich—and helped ignite the now-fading craze for contemporary Chinese art. Auction previews, arranged to look like museum shows, are dramatically lit and accompanied by club music. Adding to the atmosphere, auction catalog covers are often with images of nude women.

De Pury's strategy tripled Phillips' revenue between 2004 and 2007, and his support of causes like the New Museum has won him many fans. "Simon is an entrepreneur," says painter Julian Schnabel, who recently exhibited new work through Phillips at London's Saatchi Gallery, which is run in partnership with the auction house. "He has an entrepreneurial attitude toward art that is kind of a hybrid, kind of crossing different boundaries and coming up with interesting possibilities."

But de Pury's approach has also made him unpopular with many gallery owners, who see him as usurping their territory. They disapproved of de Pury putting works by artists in their twenties and thirties on the block—a practice widely regarded as potentially damaging to the artists' long-term markets. And they object to how he has blurred the lines between auction house and gallery. "Of all the auction houses, they have been the most vulgar," says Tim Blum, co-owner of the Los Angeles-based Blum & Poe gallery, which represents many artists—including Takashi Murakami—who have sold works through Phillips. "They postured themselves as hip and of-the-moment and smarter than anybody else."
 
Now that the house is struggling, de Pury is recalibrating the business again. At the Saturday@Phillips sales, quarterly auctions featuring work priced between $500 and $20,000, de Pury is trying to lure economizing young collectors by offering many works with no reserve. He is considering a reorganization of Phillips' departments, perhaps making room for fashion. And in a shift back to the house's roots, de Pury says he is going to place a greater emphasis on private sales, where the company quietly deals in everything from Old Masters to Impressionist works.

For his part, de Pury dismisses his critics and remains optimistic his business will bounce back. "Art has always gone up," says de Pury. "I believe that post-war and contemporary art will continue to be in financial terms the most important part of the art market for the next 20 years to come." Because of the sale to Mercury, he says, Phillips is in "a position where we feel we are properly equipped to take advantage of the current situation."