Two of Phillips auction house’s top dealmakers are to step down and leave the auction industry in what some trade insiders are calling a tectonic shift in the market.
Cheyenne Westphal, who has held the position of global chairwoman at Phillips for eight years, is leaving to pursue a “new chapter” working directly with private collectors and artists. Jean-Paul Engelen, who joined the auction house in 2015 and was appointed president in the Americas in 2022, is taking on a new role at Acquavella Galleries in New York.
The departures come just months after Ed Dolman resigned as executive chairman in December. Dolman, who joined Phillips as chief executive in 2014 and was promoted in 2021, leaves the auction house this month for his newly created consultancy role. The firm’s deputy chief executive Amanda Lo Iacono also stepped down at the end of last year to pursue other opportunities.
Engelen and Westphal, who both have deep relationships in the blue-chip and less established contemporary art markets, have been key to expanding Phillips’s remit and size over the past decade. “Jean-Paul has been instrumental in Phillips’s growth and success since joining the firm in 2015,” Stephen Brooks, the firm’s former chief executive officer, said in 2022 at the time of Engelen’s promotion. Brooks left the auction house in 2024 for personal reasons.
Dubbed the most powerful woman in contemporary art, Westphal was recruited from Sotheby’s in 2016. At the time Dolman described her as “regarded by many as the best in the business”. She came to Phillips having overseen every major contemporary art sale at Sotheby’s in Europe since 1999 and helped orchestrate the unprecedented 2008 Damien Hirst auction, Beautiful Inside My Head Forever, which fetched £121m even as Lehmann Brothers collapsed. At Phillips, Westphal has overseen every major sale since she arrived and has secured major consignments. She has had particular success in the market for Gerhard Richter.
Following the 2008 global financial crisis, the art market bounced back relatively quickly—but the current downturn has been more protracted. The auction houses have been particularly hard hit, with sales values down last year by 20%, according to the latest Art Basel/UBS Art Market Report. The once-booming contemporary sector was hit hard, with sales at auction dropping by 36% to $1.4bn, their lowest level since 2018. At Phillips last year, auction revenue was down 14%.
Describing the art market as “an ever-changing industry”, Westphal tells The Art Newspaper she now plans to set up her own business, something she considered when she left Sotheby’s. At the time she was persuaded by a certain momentum, as well as potential, at Phillips. Her decision, she adds, was unrelated to other departures at the auction house. “This is how I want to spend the next phase of my professional life,” she says.
As for how Westphal sees the market developing, she observes that some collectors now prefer to sell privately rather than at public auction—a common phenomenon in a bear market. “We have seen an enormous increase in private sales," she says, adding: “I look forward to being at the forefront of the art market’s next evolution.”
The new guard
Taking the reigns at Phillips are Robert Manley, who has been promoted to chairman of Modern and contemporary art, and Miety Heiden, who takes on the role of chairman of private sales. Manley joined Phillips in 2016 as a senior specialist and quickly moved up to the role of deputy chairman and worldwide co-head of Modern and contemporary art. He has been instrumental in consigning the Pop art collection of Miles and Shirley Fiterman, among others. Heiden joined the firm’s private sales department in 2017; during her tenure, annual private sales at the auction house have increased in value by 46%.
Martin Wilson, Phillips’s new chief executive officer, says in a statement that he has “no doubt” that Manley and Heiden “will continue to drive excellence with the professionalism, integrity, and enthusiasm”. He adds: “Together with Jonathan Crockett, chairman in Asia, they represent a united leadership team with exceptional reach across key markets.”
