He sells. his decision is radical. he sells. And the page turns. It is not simple. Almost fifty years of a life. And of the eminently intimate memories. But Pierre Bergé hates nostalgia, and looks at the future. It has ideas, projects, some intact passions, it will speak again about it. But to sell is like a precondition.
To sell “the” collection. To sell the complete whole of the treasures, masterpieces, wonders of art gathered by itself and his/her companion, the Yves Saint Laurent dressmaker, lasting of the decades. Parts of exception since it was the only criterion of this couple of esthètes sharing the same taste. “We waited to have what is called money for touching with art with large “has”. Rather a wall empties that a poor table!”Splendours chosen one by one, admired, cajolées and integrated with the passing of years and very favorites in a whole of a perfect force and a coherence. Pieces of furniture and tables, bronzes and enamels, Chinese art, Art déco, objects out of gold, silver, vermeil, out of ivory, Rebirth or of the XVIII E ancient century, and statues, and mythical fabrics: Géricault, Picasso, Cézanne, Matisse, Manet, Vuillard, Gauguin, Munch, Mondrian, Leger…
It sells and the world of art - purchasers, galerists, antique dealers, curators of a museum - quivers and bruisse of thousand rumours, thousand interrogations. Is it possible, really, that the collection is dispersed? Is it known if the splendid table of James Ensor the Despair of Pierrot will belong to the sale? Is the Museum of Orsay on the rows? What is it of this work of Marcel Duchamp entitled Belle breath, water of veil? Will the Centre Pompidou be purchaser? Which will be the value? Will there be the drawings of Ingres? The self-portrait of David? A carved wood of Brancusi? …
Pierre Bergé smiles, conscious of the increasing excitation, and this wave of dreams, phantasms, of desires, propagated by the advertisement of her decision. Yes, all the collection will be put on sale. In Paris. 23,24, February 25, 2009. More than 700 parts. And all in excellence. It will keep only one African sculpture, the mythical bird sénoufo, which, all wings spread, day before still on the living room of Yves Saint Laurent and was the first part bought with the dressmaker. And then the portrait of Yves, painted by their friend Warhol.
Yes, the official evaluation ranges well between 200 and 300 million euros: 15-20 million euros for the table of Matisse Cuckoos on the blue and pink carpet; 30 to 40 million euros for that of Picasso Musical instrument on a pedestal table. But the professionals bet on an explosion of records and a total sale of at least 500 million euros.
Since the beginning of the summer, emails, mails, calls emanate from the whole world. Collectors dispersed in Europe and America, but also in Beijing, Shanghai, Moscow, Tokyo, Dubai require to be informed before even the completion of the catalogue. When? Where? What? How much? An expression returns on all the lips: “It will be the sale of the century.” Really? “Without any doubt! ”, ensure in the same dash merchants and collectors.
All the same, there were precedents well! They excavate in their memory. Not, no sale can compete in width, quality, scarcity. Some evoke the sale Jacques Doucet of 1972 - at the time which, moreover, Bergé and Saint Laurent had made their first acquisitions of pieces of furniture of the years 1930 - but it much was restricted and related to Art déco; others think of the sale Hubert de Givenchy, in 1995, where Bergé in particular bought enamels, but it related primarily to parts of the XVIII E century. Like the collection Breton, in 2003, was dedicated only to surrealism.
As regards tables, a merchant quotes the Quinn sale in the years 1920, the Goldschmidt sale in 1958. But at the time, specifies Alain Tarica, privileged supplier of the couple Bank-Saint Laurent, and respected expert, of many parts of Master still existed at private individuals and could potentially present itself on the market at reasonable prices.
“But it is finished! The laws on the dation made that many States receive from now on in payment, at the time of successions, of major works which are found thus in the museums. As for the directors of those, more offensive and better trained than before, they are démènent to sponge the cream of the increasingly many market and to thus attract each other a public. The occasions to find masterpieces appear very rare. This sale will be the last! Impossible to today reconstitute a collection of such a level!”
Single, therefore. And Christie' S, in charge of the auction in partnership with the proper house of sales of Pierre Bergé, intends well to orchestrate the operation like an event of exception. A countdown started. And about fifty people are mobilized.
Experts of Paris, London and New York spread themselves with precaution in the apartments between which is distributed the collection: the splendid duplex of the street of Babylon in which the couple had arranged in 1972 and where one impassioned of modern art, Marie Cuttoli, had lived before; and two apartments of a house of the street Bonaparte, which saw being born Edouard Manet and dying the Lyautey marshal, and in which Pierre Bergé had settled at the end of the years 1980.
Each part is a decoration, each decoration an ECRIN with the multiple objects laid out carefully. The styles, the times, the continents are juxtaposed, confronted, grow rich, appear mutually. The mixture is total, permanent eclecticism, the inexpressible harmony. Fascinating. Not a forsaken angle, nothing which was not thought; on some side which one turns, a splendour is to be seen. Who does not kill that of at side. But the celandine, the magnifie. The asserted influence of the taste and the audacities of the count and the viscountess de Noailles is obvious.
A photographer tries, in addition to the objects, to collect the spirit, environment, the heart. A challenge. One will however need that the luxurious catalogue in preparation, five volumes with accompanying notes by historians of art, tries to engrave the magic of the places, something of unutterable. He will appear at mid-January, will be the subject surely of a subscription, will become collector, even if it is envisaged to also put it on line.
Two young specialists in European art from London are completely bluffés, who palpate and observe the objects with devotion before taking notes. “One will see that only once in our life! , Andreas Pampoulides exclaims. Each table of living room shows the spirit of the cabinet of curiosities. See! Terra cotta a Greek vase of the IV E, a German virgin of the XVII E, a portrait of enamel man of Limoges of the XVI E, a head of ivory Christ of the XVII E. And then these candlesticks out of gilded brass and coral! This rock crystal vase so difficult to carve. All here is worthy of a museum.”
François de Ricqlès, vice-president of Christie' S, accustomed great sales, either never did not see him anything of similar and feels “invested”, decided with to do everything so that the sale enters the history. “It must radiate like the name of Saint Laurent; to impress the spirits and the public since the exposure will be opened to all; to be all in all a celebration - it is the word - eye and perfect taste of these two collectors.”
He wanted the exceptional one, he was necessary the Large palace for him. He obtained it. A first in the history of the sales and the public corporation of which the president, Yves Saint-Geours, clamp his enthusiasm. “A mythical place for a mythical collection. A historical palate for an major event, emblematic, which will make dream. Formidable! Completely in the logic of a monument placed, as of the end of the World Fair of 1900, under the sign of art and the sale, the radiation of Paris and creation.”
With Nathalie Mane, specialist in museography, the responsibility of put in scene the exposure. “The challenge! ”, it corrects, evoking the constraint to have only four days to install collection and device. How to emphasize works, by preserving the spirit which governed their choice and their assembly? How to make dialogue objects, recreate an environment? And then this paradox: how to allow the public to be closest to the objects all while protecting them? Because at one moment T, five thousand people can press themselves under the canopy of the Large palace.
Pierre Bergé seems very satisfied. All that sounds just, says it. “Christie' S was essential because François de Ricqlès and his enthusiasm conquered me.” As for the choice of Paris rather than London or New York where usually the great international sales take place… “Let us see, it was an obviousness! It is here that Yves and me were success and earned our money, it is here that we must expose what did we.” Do you know, adds it, that “I always wanted to make an exposure interfering work Yves and our collection, and entitled “From which the money comes, where goes the money?” The money came from this transitory trade, and it passed in these pieces of furniture, these tables, these objects. It did not go banks about it, it was not placed out of Stock Exchange. It is important to show what a made man of his life. “
And then, Pierre Bergé likes the idea to try to bring back the market towards Paris. Certain foreign professionals are amazed? Is New York supposed more profitable? And then! “I hate neither the challenges nor the provocations! It is here that I want to sell! Americans and Russians will come. I know it.”
How it waits this moment! To show the collection finally. To divide. And to officially realise it. Like a work with whole share. A masterpiece with four hands. Two forever bound names. In a catalogue which it will often divide into sheets “, very often” in the future. In newspapers, books of Article And of course in the history, the pedigree, of each object. The word “celebration” that Ricqlès asserts is appropriate him perfectly. To sell is not to waste. But to post, recognize, devote. It is to preserve, after the death of the companion and loved accomplice, a collection from time immemorial undivided which, thinks it, would have been absurd, wobbly and would have made it virtual. At the evening of February 25, 2009, “after the last blow of hammer of the appraiser, the collection will exist for always”.
As for the objects… “I always knew that art was on our premises in transit. Like swallows on a wire. One day, one types in the hands and they fly away all. But that does not make the orphan ones. They will be collected, like my objects, by people who will like them. And by trotting me by chance in the cities of the world, I would be very happy, really very happy, to find a part having belonged to us one day.”
It always lent works to the museums which required them (Paris, New York, Madrid, Saint-Pétersbourg…). Saint Laurent, hated to him. As he did not travel, the collection was a partner, alleviating, inspiring, vital. It was undoubtedly their only point of divergence concerning the collection. “One day when I insisted to lend Goya to Prado, I saw it whether desperate that I proposed to make an immense photograph which one would place at the site of the table. It was delighted.” Before long, marvellous Goya will join the Museum of Louvre. A gift, this time. “Without exchange of anything.”
No regret, it is sure. No apprehension with the idea to find itself in an apartment with the empty walls. “A large side of my life disappeared with died from Yves, on June 1. Then, you know, that I miss tables is not very important.” It will not repurchase any. It will continue with fever its own collection of old books (“It is a species of virus; I was broker of books when I began my life”); will occupy itself in Morocco of the Majorelle garden, entrusted to a foundation and accomodating 650.000 visitors per annum; will take care more than ever of the destinies of the St. Lawrence Foundation which, which occurred Marceau, shelter 5.000 clothing preserved under exceptional conditions, and 150.000 various objects related to the dressmaker. As for the money corresponding to the product of the auction, it will be entirely affected with a new foundation of which the goals will be the scientific research and the assistance with the patients of the AIDS.
Alexis Kugel, who forms part, with his brother Nicolas and Alain Tarica, of the merchants with whom Pierre Bergé had tied a relation of demanding complicity, is convinced that the sale of February will mark of a white stone the history of art and taste. Because it intervenes, says he, during one time lacking aesthetic reference marks. The personalities and the living rooms having been used a long time as reference disappeared. The magazines of decoration post an increasing standardization of the decorations, which they are photographed in Paris, Chicago or Moscow. Nobody gives it, one refrene any audacity by fear of the error of taste and one takes refuge in the contemporary art “where less the good taste is judged than the size of the wallet”.
However, Alexis Kugel continues, here is that the name of Saint Laurent, universally known like symbol of good taste and elegance, gives its official stamp to hundreds of object! “The range of the potential buyers does not have any more any limit! The glances will open on sides of the collection hitherto little known, new amateurs can appear, the sale will be used as aesthetic reference to a new generation.” In the final analysis, it, “it analyze could be that this auction has a world repercussion much more important than that which the opening of a museum would have had on the Marceau avenue”.
Pierre Bergé agrees, allures by this idea to be used in her turn as reference. The more it approaches, the more this sale seems to fill with enthusiasm it, carrying the most various messages. To transmit the taste of art, curiosity and of course of the beautiful things. To cause at young people the passion of the collection - “Which wonder, for a child, the voyage by the stamps!” To finally show the image of a couple of men having fully carried out their ambitions. “If you knew the number of young people who write to me to think that our example their made it possible to live their sexuality freely. I ensure you that nothing upsets me more. Nothing!”
From Living for Design: The Yves Saint Laurent Story by Axel Madsen:
