Pierre Bergé

This article describes the entrepreneur. For the physicist see Pierre Bergé (physicist) .

Pierre Bergé, 2012

Pierre Vital Georges Bergé (born November 14, 1930 on the Île d'Oléron ; † September 8, 2017 in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence ) was a French entrepreneur and patron .

life and work

Bergé's mother Christiane was an elementary school teacher who taught according to Montessori pedagogy and an amateur singer ( soprano ). His father worked as a tax inspector. Bergé was brought up by his parents, who were committed to socialist politics, “liberal, tolerant, even anarchist”. He attended the Lycée Eugène Fromentin school in La Rochelle . A few months before the Baccalauréat , he moved to Paris in 1948 to become a writer or journalist. There he worked in several bookstores and visited the writers Pierre Mac Orlan, Francis Carco , Jean Anouilh and especially Jean Cocteau . He wrote to the Provençal writer Jean Giono , who invited him. He stayed with Giono for two years and took care of his household. In addition to his daily writing work, Giono pursued many activities and so Bergé learned a strict time discipline from him.

From 1950 to 1958 Bergé was the partner and agent of the painter Bernard Buffet , whose works he later viewed critically.

Yves Saint Laurent

In 1958 Bergé met the French fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent and became his partner until Saint Laurent's death in 2008. Together with Saint Laurent, he founded and built the fashion house Yves Saint Laurent Couture in 1961 . The American insurance salesman and future banker J. Mack Robinson from Atlanta helped the company with a private loan. In 1966, Bergé founded Saint Laurent Rive gauche, a chain of company-owned branches that sold Saint Laurent's prêt-à-porter fashion exclusively, but at lower prices than its haute couture . Robinson withdrew from the company. Bergé later licensed Mode Saint Laurents for other trading houses. Bergé was considered the decisive force behind all important joint decisions. He said: "... since the very beginning with Yves I organized everything." In 1976 Bergé and Saint Laurent separated, but remained friends and continued to run the fashion house as business partners.

During their 50-year relationship, Saint Laurent and Bergé have assembled one of the largest private art collections in Europe. The auction house Christie’s and Pierre Bergé & Associés auctioned the collection from February 23 to 25, 2009 in the Grand Palais in Paris . There were 733 objects and paintings from all style eras that were purchased for their quality alone. Christie's rented the Grand Palais for 300,000 euros and designed it for one million euros. At Christie's they spoke of the "auction of the century" and in the press they called the auction the "sale of the century" ("la vente du siècle"). The auction proceeds, which Bergé had initially estimated at EUR 300 million, were exceeded at EUR 373.9 million, which is also the record value for a private collection in Europe. Half of the amount he donated to medical research projects on AIDS and the other half to his “Fondation Pierre Bergé - Yves Saint Laurent”, which is dedicated to the preservation and presentation of the graphic and fashionable heritage of Saint Laurent. In 2004, he and Saint Laurent established this foundation in order to preserve and develop his life's work in the former studio on Avenue Marceau . The stock includes 5,000 clothes, 15,000 accessories and drawings as well as almost all reports in the print and audiovisual media.

Cultural engagement

In 1985, Pierre Bergé founded the left-wing, intellectual monthly magazine Globe together with the journalist Georges-Marc Benamou , thereby supporting François Mitterrand's re-election as French President. As a friend of Mitterrand, he managed to convince him that Paris needed a second opera house. In August 1988 Bergé became honorary president of the Opéra Bastille in Paris and ran the opera house until 1994. He then became honorary president of the Opéra National de Paris . In the 1960s he ran two theaters in addition to his company. In the “Théâtre de l'Athénée” he introduced soirées in which he made known artists such as Jessye Norman and Gundula Janowitz , who were still unknown at the time, to be known. Bergé was president of the Médiathèque Musicale Mahler organization , which is dedicated to the musical works of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Patronage

Maison Jean Cocteau, Milly-la-Forêt , 2008

Bergé was also honorary president of the Foundation Comité Jean Cocteau and owned the rights to the literary works of Jean Cocteau . Since the heirs of Cocteau had dissolved his legacy, he had to give up his plan for a museum. Instead, he funded the renovation of Cocteau's last house (1947–1963) in Milly-la-Forêt , 50 km southeast of Paris, with € 3.5 million . It was opened on June 22nd, 2010 by Minister of Culture Frédéric Mitterrand . The first gallery contains a permanent exhibition of around 500 Cocteau portraits by artists and Cocteau friends, including pictures by Warhol , Picasso , Modigliani and Man Ray . Since Bergé had no permanent funding, the Cocteau house had to lay off all staff after his death, except for the porter and the gardener.

As president of the Association Maison Zola , Bergé sponsored the renovation of Émile Zola's house in Médan, west of Paris, which was to be converted into a museum. He supported the theatrical work of Robert Wilson and the literary work of Peter Brook . In 1998 he donated the crowning glory for the obelisk on the Place de la Concorde , a 3.6 m high pyramidion made of gilded bronze. He also donated paintings and valuable furniture to several museums (see the website of his foundation).

As an LGBT activist, Bergé co-founded the French LGBT magazine Têtu , which he co-financed. He supported AIDS organizations like Act Up in Paris. In 1996 he became president of the AIDS organization Sidaction .

various

In 2001 he founded the Pierre Bergé & Associés auction house in Paris with branches in Geneva and Brussels . He has been president of the "Institut Français de la Mode" ("Institute of French Fashion") since it was founded in 1986. In the 2007 French presidential election campaign, he supported Ségolène Royal .

On June 25, 2010, together with the banker Matthieu Pigasse (Vice President of Lazard Europe) and the Internet entrepreneur Xavier Niel (groupe Iliad , DSL provider Free ), he was awarded the contract to buy the economically troubled daily Le Monde , which so far was largely supported by its editors. Bergé and his companions continued to guarantee the editorial staff their journalistic independence. President Nicolas Sarkozy intervened several times and finally threatened the editorial team with a vote in favor of Bergé & Co. with the cancellation of the subsidies for the modernization of the Le Monde printing plant. The Supervisory Board of the Le Monde Group decided with a narrow majority in favor of the takeover offer from the group of investors around Bergé. He married Madison Cox in March 2017. Bergé suffered from myopathy and was dependent on a wheelchair. He died in his country house in Saint Rémy .

Honors

Bergé was awarded the Order of Orange-Nassau (officer) and the Ordre national du Mérite (officer) and was accepted as a commander in the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and the Legion of Honor . In July 1993 he was made an honorary ambassador for UNESCO .

Fonts

• Liberté, j'écris ton nom. Grasset, Paris 1991, ISBN 2-246-45481-6 .
• Yves Saint Laurent. Schirmer / Mosel, Munich 1997.
• Inventory Mitterrand. Stock, Paris 2001, ISBN 2-234-05408-7 .
• Majorelle . Une oasis marocaine. Photographs by Claire de Virieu. Actes Sud, Arles 1999, ISBN 2-7427-2430-3 ( Grands jardins series), English: Majorelle. A Moroccan Oasis. ISBN 0-86565-210-4 .
• Les jours s'en vont, je demeure. Autobiography. Gallimard, Paris 2004, ISBN 2-07-031650-5 .
• Album Cocteau. Biography and iconography. Gallimard, Paris 2006, ISBN 978-2-07-011808-3 ( Album de la Pléiade series ).
• with René Sirvin: Théâtre du Châtelet . Un festival permanent (1999-2006). Photographs by Marie-Noëlle Robert. Édition Cercle d'Art, Paris 2006, ISBN 2-7022-0767-7 .
• L'art de la préface. Anthology. Gallimard, Paris 2008, ISBN 978-2-07-012281-3 ( anthology of 18 prefaces, written by Proust, Valéry , Claudel , Jouhandeau , Mallarmé and others)

literature

• Robert Murphy: Les paradis secrets d'Yves Saint-Laurent et de Pierre Bergé. Introduction by Pierre Bergé. Photographs by Ivan Terestchenko. Albin Michel, Paris 2009, ISBN 978-2-22618-171-8 .
• Robert Murphy, Peter Saville: Yves Saint Laurent & Pierre Bergé - The Collection. Translated by Karin Maack. Heyne, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-89910-430-1 .

Movie

• Celebration , French documentary by Olivier Meyrou (2007)

Web links

• Pierre Bergé & Associés , auction house
• Fondation Pierre Bergé - Yves Saint Laurent (French, English)
• Biography , UNESCO (English)
• Five catalogs of the auction , Christie's (English)
• Catalog for the art collection , Christie's, (PDF; 4 MB, English)
• “My life has been empty since the death of Yves” , FAZ , December 19, 2008

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Histoire avant 1962 , Fondation Pierre Bergé - Yves Saint Laurent
2. ↑ Yves Saint Laurent's former partner is dead , on welt.de on September 8, 2017
3. ↑ Yves Saint Laurent co-founder Pierre Berge dies on skynews.com from September 8, 2017
4. ^ ^{A b} Anthony Haden-Guest: "For Yves, art was food for the soul" , The Guardian , January 18, 2009
5. ^ ^{A b c} Peter Bermbach: "My life has been empty since the death of Yves" , FAZ, December 19, 2008
6. ↑ Peter Bermbach: "My life has been empty since the death of Yves" , FAZ , December 19, 2008
7. ↑ Jennifer Brock: "A good name ... J. Mack Robinson" ( Memento of the original from February 1, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Georgia State University , Robinson College of Business 
8. ↑ Hans-Hagen Bremer: "Scattered on all walls" , Tagesspiegel , February 23, 2009
9. ↑ “Yves Saint Laurent's private collection will be auctioned” , Tagesspiegel , February 17, 2009
10. ↑ The YSL auction breaks records. TV report, Germany, 2009, 2:20 min., Director: Alexander von Sobeck, production: ZDF , series: heute in europa, first broadcast: February 24, 2009.
11. ^ Ag .: "" Century auction "of the collection items from YSL" , Die Presse , February 19, 2009
12. ↑ Godfrey Deeny: “ Auction of the Century. Yves Saint Laurent man sells marriage treasures " , Die Welt , 17. February 2009
13. ^ "Bergé-Saint Laurent, la vente du siècle" , La Tribune , February 20, 2009
14. ↑ Angelika Heinick: "A Mondrian on the catwalk" , FAZ, February 4, 2009, with a series of pictures
15. ↑ Christoph Wöß: "YSL auction ends with record proceeds" ( memento from March 1, 2009 in the Internet Archive ), tagesschau.de , February 26, 2009
16. ^ "Yves Saint Laurent: the auction" ( Memento of the original of February 27, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Süddeutsche Zeitung , February 24, 2009, with Reuters video 1:47 min. 
17. ↑ Marc Zitzmann: “Finally Maecenas has awakened from its slumber on the Seine” , NZZ , August 18, 2008
      “The Pierre Bergé - Yves Saint Laurent foundation has set itself three primary goals” , Pierre Bergé Foundation - Yves Saint Laurent
18. ↑ Médiathèque Musicale Mahler ( Memento of the original from March 3, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
19. ↑ Comité Jean Cocteau (English)
20. ↑ Page no longer available , search in web archives: La Maison de Jean Cocteau enfin ouverte au public , Le Magazine Littéraire, June 25, 2010
21. ^ "La 'Maison Jean Cocteau' inaugurée à Milly-la-Forêt"  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , AP / Le Nouvel Observateur , June 22, 2010  
22. ↑ https://www.lesechos.fr/pme-regions/actualite-pme/0301362975618-essonne-consternation-a-milly-la-foret-apres-la-fermeture-brutale-de-la-maison-cocteau-2159116 .php
23. ^ Projet Maison Zola Musée Dreyfus
24. ↑ ^{a b c} biography , UNESCO
25. ↑ "Pierre Berge gave a talk to IFM's students" , IFM, January 2009
26. ^ Matthieu Pigasse , French Wikipedia
27. ↑ Xavier Niel: Robin Hood of the Networks , Handelsblatt , October 28, 2009
28. ↑ Hans-Hagen Bremer: Portrait of Pierre Bergé. Soon “Le Monde” shareholder: “Don't stand in front of the president” , Tagesspiegel , June 27, 2010
29. ^ Charles Bremner: "Sarkozy wants a friendly Monde" ( Memento of June 16, 2010 in the Internet Archive ), The Times , June 14, 2010
30. ↑ Vote for Pierre Bergé: Left patron favorite for the purchase of the daily newspaper "Le Monde" ( Memento from June 27, 2010 in the Internet Archive ), Financial Times Deutschland , June 25, 2010
    Johannes Duchrow: "Traditional paper" Le Monde " looking for investors. The struggle for money and independence " ( Memento from June 15, 2010 in the Internet Archive ), tagesschau.de , June 12, 2010, with audio file, 2:47 min.
31. ↑ Hamburger Morgenpost "Le Monde" saved for the time being " June 28, 2010.
32. ↑ Sa myopathie, Pierre Bergé en parlait et c'est aussi pour ça qu'il a critiqué le Téléthon . In: Le Huffington Post . September 8, 2017 ( huffingtonpost.fr [accessed September 13, 2017]).