Word: artes
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...blustery January afternoon, I was one of the last people to get a peek inside the three-story apartment on Rue de Babylone where Saint Laurent lived from 1972 until his death. Stepping into the Grand Salon, visitors are met with a mind-bogglingly eclectic display of art that somehow achieves a visual harmony. An imposing Fernand Léger dominates the far wall with a Matisse nude tucked away nearby; on the other side of the broad rectangular room, where Renaissance objects of bronze and silver intermingle with sumptuous art-deco furniture, an elaborate cubist Picasso masterpiece - Instruments...
Yves Saint Laurent famously punctured the wall between art and fashion in 1965 when he designed a stunning line of prêt-a-porter dresses based on the colorful geometric creations of Dutch-born abstract painter Piet Mondrian. Seven years later, Saint Laurent and his then companion and lifelong business partner Pierre Bergé would buy the first of three Mondrian paintings as they began building one of the great art collections of modern times. On Feb. 23-25, eight months after Saint Laurent's death at age 71, Christie's will sell off the pair's entire collection...
...collection is significant as a chance to mine the last vestiges of the 20th century aesthetic, and reflect on those same walls that divide - and sometimes unite - the artist and artisan, taste and knowledge, sense of style and pursuit of the sublime. (See pictures from Yves Saint Laurent's art auction...
...they bought the wooden Brancusi and the Matisse still life and the antique Roman bust. "The goal was to buy the best painting, the best sculpture," Bergé explains. "If you are a collector, it's not a question of taste. You have to love the work of art, yes, but first is to understand what you are looking at, to know what the painting means in the life of the painter...
...Even when elements of the work on his walls found their way into his sketchbook, Saint Laurent drew a distinction between the two. "Yves and I were convinced that fashion is not an art, but fashion needs art to exist," Bergé says. And so, to keep Saint Laurent inspired, their collection grew into a mixture of styles and epochs. "Works that are on speaking terms with each other," is how Bergé explains it. "A blend. It is the quality of the blend that is important in a collection." And, as Yves Saint Laurent proved time and time again...