The Art Newspaper

Pierre Bergé’s homage to Cocteau

The partner of Yves Saint Laurent is the force behind the €4m house restoration

By Cristina Carrillo De Albornoz. News, Issue 214, June 2010
Published online: 23 June 2010

Cocteau in his attic studio (left), the house and garden

PARIS. After five years’ work and at a cost of over €4m, the home of Jean Cocteau, the Maison Cocteau at Milly-la-Forêt, will open to the public on 24 June. The poet, dramatist, painter and film-maker lived in the house for the last 17 years of his life, from 1947 until 1963.

Less than an hour’s travelling time from Paris, the house became a refuge to which Cocteau escaped with his partner, Edouard Dermit, know as “Doudou”. It was also here that he worked on some of his most important creations, including the films “Beauty and the Beast” and “Orpheus”, along with numerous paintings, drawings and pastels. The artist is buried in the nearby Chapelle Saint-Blaise-des-Simples.

The driving force behind the plan to create this memorial to Cocteau is Pierre Bergé, partner of the late fashion designer and art collector, Yves Saint Laurent. Bergé is the president of the Maison Cocteau’s board and a patron of the project.

“Bergé was a very good friend to Edouard Dermit, while Yves Saint Laurent collected works by Cocteau,” says Stéphane Chomant, the project’s coordinator. From Cocteau’s death in 1963 until his own death in 1995, Dermit carefully preserved the house and works, including antique furniture and objets d’art, as well as 3,000 works by Manet, Doré, Picasso and Bérard. When Dermit died, he transferred the moral rights to Cocteau’s work to Bergé. In 2002, Dermit’s son sold the house to Bergé for €1m, with the support of the Ile-de-France Regional Council and the General Council of Essonne. Bergé has renovated the property with the same partners (Bergé paid 45% of the costs), at a further cost of €3.5m. The renovation was planned and overseen by the architect François Magendie, and a team led by Dominique Païni and Nathalie Crin­ière, who organised the Jean Cocteau retrospective at the Centre Pompidou in 2003.

“The whole house is a work of art in its own right,” says Chomant of the displays of ceramics, tapestries, paintings and furniture. The main rooms of the residence have been faithfully restored, while the kitchens and other parts of the house have been reconfigured to make a temporary exhibition space.

The ground floor has been turned into a cinema to show films by and about the artist, and those inspired by his works, such as “La Voix Humaine” by Roberto Rossel­lini (1948) and “Les Enfants Terribles” by Jean-Pierre Melville (1950). Visitors will also be able to see various sculptures and other objects from Cocteau’s film sets in the renovated gardens.

The plan is for the house-museum to mount a new exhibition each year, on such subjects as Cocteau’s relationships with Picasso, the Nouvelle Vague film-makers, Christian Bérard, the artist, fashion illustrator and designer, and “Les mystères de Jean l’oiseleur”, the series of self-portraits (1924). An al fresco restaurant is situated under a pergola in the orchard planted by Cocteau.

The project’s sponsors include Cartier, the councils of Ile-de-France and Essonne, the Agence Espaces Verts Ile-de-France preservation body and the environmental government organisation, the Agence Eau Seine Normandie [see www.jeancocteau.net].