Displaying items by tag: pierre berge

Six years after selling off his art collection in a record-breaking "sale of the century", the French businessman and philanthropist Pierre Berge is now putting his renowned library under the hammer.

The lover and business partner of the late designer Yves Saint Laurent told AFP he is putting almost his entire collection up for auction, one of the most priceless in private hands.

The fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent once declared of his partner Pierre Bergé: “The world will talk about a Goût Bergé, just as it speaks of a Goût Noailles.”

As the $484 million auction of the couple’s art collection at Christie’s in 2009 can attest to, this “Bergé taste” is the epitome of a keen eye, and a penchant for objects with great history and pedigree. Over the next two years, more examples of Bergé’s fine collectibles are scheduled to go under the hammer in Paris, this time at Sotheby’s — in the form of 1,600 precious books, manuscripts and musical scores from his personal library that date from the 15th to the 20th century.

Now that the first week of the big spring auctions is over, Sotheby’s is wasting no time touting its sales in London next month, hanging highlights in its York Avenue galleries for collectors to peruse during the contemporary-art previews this weekend.

Knowing that today’s appetite for prime abstract paintings appears boundless, Sotheby’s expects a 1927 Mondrian that has not been on the market since the 1950s to be a star of its June 23 auction. This stark canvas, “Composition With Red, Blue and Grey,” was first owned by Harry Holtzman, an artist who helped found the American Abstract Artists Group, an influential organization that espoused the principles of European Modernism, and who was a friend of Mondrian’s and an expert on his work.

Francois-Henri Pinault, a French billionaire and CEO of the luxury-goods brand, Kering (formerly PPR), has announced that he will return a pair of Qing dynasty bronze statues to China. The looted bronzes were part of a 2009 auction at Christie’s in Paris that sparked a campaign in China aimed at putting an end to intimidation by foreign powers. Officials from Beijing have applauded Pinault’s efforts to create a more camaraderie-focused dynamic between France and China. Pinault is the owner of the Artemis Group, Christie’s holding company.

The works to be returned to China are the bronze heads of a rat and a rabbit, which were part of a group of 12 animal heads that were looted from Beijing’s Summer Palace by French and British troops in 1860 during the Second Opium War. Since emerging as a powerful international force in recent years, China has been campaigning for the return of the works. Five of the bronzes have been given back to China and one is in Taiwan while the whereabouts of the remaining four pieces remain a mystery.

The bronzes being returned to China by Pinault were previously owned by French fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent and were put up for auction in 2009 following his death. Chinese officials voiced opposition at the time of the sale and an advisor to a Chinese government fund placed the winning bid on the bronzes but never ended up paying for them. The works were returned to Pierre Berge, Saint Laurent’s former partner.

Pinault is working with the Cultural Heritage Administration to get the bronzes back to China as quickly as possible. The decision is a clever move on Pinault’s part as his businesses, which include Gucci and Puma, have been thriving in China’s growing consumer economy.