Rue Bonaparte
“You needed things, whereas I only need people, you liked to keep things, and I like to share them.”
30 January 2009. Pierre Bergé, Lettres à Yves, Gallimard, 2010
Rue Bonaparte
“ This Boeuf écorché is extraordinary! It is a real great piece of painting, a challenge that he threw himself and that he has perfectly succeeded. He obviously thought of Rembrandt, he obviously thought of Soutine, one of the rare artists of his time for whom he had esteem.[...] Bernard always told the story of the beef carcass Soutine kept for eight days in his studio. The neighbours were alarmed by the smell. There is evidently a precision in Buffet's painting that does not exist with Soutine.”
Pierre Bergé (In Jérôme Coignard, Bernard Buffet, Les Années 1950, Entretien avec Pierre Bergé, Paris, 2016, Pp. 24-25)
Rue Bonaparte
“One day in my flat, you asked in astonishment, or so it appeared, “How can you have so many things?” (…) Some people are paranoid, others claustrophobic ; we were collectors (…) not like cousin Pons, but rather like the Goncourts or Noailles (…).”
16 January 2009, Pierre Bergé, Lettres à Yves, Gallimard, 2010
Rue Bonaparte
“What I’m trying to say is that this trip to Spain has strengthened my resolve, and increased my admiration for Moorish culture.”
12 April 2009, Pierre Bergé, Lettres à Yves, Gallimard, 2010
Rue Bonaparte
“You can’t imagine how reassured I feel to live surrounded by these things that belonged to us, which have been so familiar for many years, and which remind me of you.”
24 April 2009, Pierre Bergé, Lettres à Yves, Gallimard, 2010
Rue Bonaparte
“The painters have left; I can enjoy Rue Bonaparte again, and the furniture and objects that belonged to us.”
16 May 2009, Pierre Bergé, Lettres à Yves, Gallimard, 2010
Rue Bonaparte
“You listened to me, you had absolute confidence in me ; as with everything, you allowed me to hone my eye, refine my taste, and above all find myself, as it’s there – in matters of taste – that it happened. In objects and above all, paintings. (...) it’s art that has the strongest impact on me, that remains essential, that I know the most about, and that makes me the happiest.”
14 April 2009, Pierre Bergé, Lettres à Yves, Gallimard, 2010
Rue Bonaparte
“How I hate nostalgia, and love this age which is opening the doors to the future; an age that has shrunk space, that lets one go to the ends of the earth in a few hours, telephone from anywhere, send and receive emails; that has raised culture to a level never seen before, and science has advanced in leaps and bounds! I am sorry that I’ll have to leave the world one day; I’d love to see what’s coming next.”
30 April 2009, Pierre Bergé, Lettres à Yves, Gallimard, 2010
La Datcha
“Yesterday, I went on to see the datcha in Bénerville. The renovation work is going well. You loved this place which is so cut off from the world. Even if I avoid any kind of nostalgia, I’d like to keep the datcha and its unique atmosphere. It’s a “folly”, as they’d call pavilions, built in a certain way.”
13 March 2009, Pierre Bergé, Lettres à Yves, Gallimard, 2010
Mabrouka
“I’m spending the night at Mas Théo in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence...I often think of Tangier. Do you remember what I told you when you were hesitating about buying the house we had found there? I’m sure you remember. I said, “Yves, you were born in Oran, on the Mediterranean, and I on the Ile d’Oléron in the Atlantic. Tangier is where the Mediterranean and the Atlantic meet.”
23 January 2009, Pierre Bergé, Lettres à Yves, Gallimard, 2010
Mabrouka
“I’m sure you’d agree that, faced with our collection, I might look at it with “the stupid gaze of an indifferent passer-by” as Goncourt said. (…) Like the works of art we accumulated, they were in our path and we found them.”
1 February 2009, Pierre Bergé, Lettres à Yves, Gallimard, 2010
Mabrouka
"It’s in Morocco that I feel closest to you. I remember you were sad whenever we left the country; as soon as we’d arrive in Paris, you’d run and shut yourself in your room.”
4 June 2009, Pierre Bergé, Lettres à Yves, Gallimard, 2010
Mabrouka
“I am on the plane that’s taking us back to Paris. We’re flying over Tangier and I can see our house. (…) Yves, we made this trip together so many times over forty years.”
30 December 2008, Pierre Bergé, Lettres à Yves, Gallimard, 2010
Mas Theo
“It was Marie-Laure de Noailles who taught you the art of mixing things, even postcards, with old master paintings”
9 May 2009, Pierre Bergé, Lettres à Yves, Gallimard, 2010
Mas Theo
“These are simply the paintings of our life together, the paintings he gave to me. […] they have never left me since those days.”
Pierre Bergé (In Jerome Coignard, Bernard Buffet. Les Années 50. Entretiens Avec Pierre Bergé, 2016)
The upcoming sale Pierre Bergé: From One Home to Another will offer for sale the remarkable contents of the various homes of one of the most successful and cultured businessmen and aesthetes of our times, Pierre Bergé. Decorated by renowned interior designers Jacques Grange, Graff and Peregalli-Rimini, each of these beautiful homes–located in Paris, Morocco, Provence and Normandy–reflect the broad-ranging interests, refined taste and voraciously curious mind of the collector behind them. Click above to view images from all four of these homes, accompanied by extracts of letters sent from Bergé to Yves Saint Laurent.