Raw Land: Elsa Peretti in Sant Martí Vell

Confusion becomes an expression of human, cultural, and professional identity – Elsa Peretti transformed the world’s disorder into an organic form

Eclectic – definition and beyond

A mix of different sources and unorganized combinations without rational criteria is considered eclectic. One can easily recognize Elsa Peretti’s intellectual signature. We won’t be able to understand this type of energy anywhere else. Elsa Peretti designed objects as organic as they were linear. These objects are volumes in their pure form, no decoration. Whether it was a piece of jewelry inspired by a human bone or a bean from a field, whether it was a candelabrum as if silver were stretching under lunar rather than earthly gravity. Referring to Elsa Peretti, the word eclectic might seem reductive.

Juxtapositions like scratches, contrasts like slaps. Every element reacts to the other – but no, that’s not true. The dissonance is just an appearance. Every slap is in sync with the rhythm, like a flamenco dance but without a guitar. Mick Jagger handcuffed and a 1936 Picasso engraving. The zodiac sign of Taurus a copy of Fratelli d’Italia by Arbasino. A piece of wood cast in bronze with a Japanese screen in gold leaf; no Mongiardino, only Andy Warhol.

Elsa Peretti and Antoni Gaudí: A concert of Flamenco, Jazz, and Bossa Nova

Her primary reference was Gaudí. In the Sala Grande of Sant Martí Vell, on the lower floor in the corner opposite the staircase, there are two Antoni Gaudí chairs. The organic nature of mud baked in the sun or sedimented over centuries. Elsa Peretti knew how to surround herself with all the natural and human complexities, from Bernini’s Roman Baroque to a primordial animal skeleton; from the French gold of Versailles to an English dining room’s tapestry. Books, magazines, gossip, auction catalogs – but beneath all this noise, Elsa found the silence of light’s vibration. Elsa Peretti would open the heart of an emerald as if in surgery, cleaning and removing the superfluous and the eclectic, finding the shape she wanted.

Too much poetry, it’s enough – Elsa preferred to dance, eat, and laugh it off. A flamenco concert mixed with jazz and Bossa Nova with a 2/4 rhythm. Flamenco was born in Andalusia in the distant 18th century as a language of release, accompanied by the rhythm of feet – only later would it be accompanied by guitar music. Elsa Peretti organized a party in the little town square at Sant Martí Vell.

Elsa Peretti and the Village of Sant Martí Vell

She discovered this village in the Catalonian hinterland, among the mountains, not so far from the sea and the Costa Brava, through a photograph by her friend Colita.

Elsa arrived there in the 1970s and, wall by wall, bought abandoned houses. She restored them. She recovered the underpasses and tunnels dug into the hill – used as hideouts during the war, or as cellars or pantries. The smallest house overlooks the open space behind the church’s apse. Elsa Peretti restored the church, and here today, she rests in a crypt under a carpet of flowers. From the square, one enters Casa Pequena.

Elsa bought 24 houses and 3 farmhouses in Sant Martí Vell and the surrounding countryside. Elsa was a wealthy woman; her contract with Tiffany & Co. was signed in 1974 – there’s a photo with Henry Platt, historic CEO and president of Tiffany & Co., taken at that time. Today, Elsa Peretti’s jewelry holds fashion value, not just a goldsmith’s one. Elsa presented Tiffany & Co. with a small bottle worn around the neck. She brought it to the first meeting. During her Italian summers in Portofino, as in other places from her childhood, Elsa had observed women holding flowers. She wondered how women could carry these flowers around their necks and keep them fresh. A small bottle to be filled with a bit of water for the stem of an orchid – so that women could wear petals in full bloom around their necks.

Elsa Peretti, Xavier Corbero’s Artisans, and the Design of the Drop

A recent TV series recounted the early days of Elsa Peretti’s career as a collaborator of Halston – and the intuition behind the perfume bottle design: the drop shape. Further developing it, her first piece of jewelry was born – crafted in the workshops of Barcelona by the artisans collaborating with Xavier Corbero, with whom Elsa had a romantic relationship that would evolve into a lifelong friendship. Xavier Corbero came from a metalworker family, and his workshop was in the Esplugues de Llobregat district. Here stands the monumental installation that marks Corbero as one of the Spanish artists comparable in caliber to Gaudí. These were the artisans who enabled Elsa Peretti to become a jewelry designer, teaching her the art of forging and showing her how far imagination could go.

Elsa and Colita, Barcelona, and the Gauche Divine

One of the first necklaces Elsa designed was a drop pendant – she said it was better for a woman to have drops on her neck rather than between her lashes. She gifted this jewel to Colita, who wore it her entire life. Colita was a prominent figure in Barcelona’s cultural scene. Her real name was Isabel Steva – she documented Spain’s democratic transition, the protests, and Franco’s downfall. One of the leading figures of the Gauche Divine, of which Elsa also felt part, as did Ricardo Bofill. After Colita’s passing on December 31st, 2023, Archivo Colita Photography and its director, Francesc Polop, are perpetuating the artist’s work.

Gauche Divine was an intellectual movement that thrived in Barcelona during the 1960s and 1970s: it found its place in the Boccaccio nightclub and became a record and film label. It was the journalist, Joan de Sagarra, who coined the name Gauche Divine in the Tele/eXprés magazine in October 1969. The city’s bourgeoisie mingled with artists and architects – an exhibition was opened at the Palau de La Virreina in 2002.

Cadaqués, Salvador Dalí, and a Photo of Elsa Taken by Oriol Maspons

Cadaqués. Salvador Dalí wanted to meet Elsa when he saw her in a photo by Oriol Maspons. The image depicted Elsa among chairs with her legs posed graphically and deliberately awkwardly, wearing a short, eclectic dress with a geometric print. In this shot, one finds the synthesis of fashion during those years, made iconic by Twiggy in Swinging London. Here with Maspons, we understand a Mediterranean and Spanish twist – the grain and thickness of the film, the hand touching the face, the stretched, elongated pose that distorts perspective with a desecting cut. (Years later, the Elsa Peretti Foundation would financially support the restoration of Oriol Maspons’ archive).

The coast around Cadaqués was a series of fishermen’s houses facing low, smooth rocks, between patches of sand and natural formations, small coves, and micro-archipelagos where fishing was not such a hard job. Everything was blue – the interior walls of the houses were coated with lime mixed with lapis lazuli. This created a not-so-intense turquoise, a blue known as Blue Montserrat – a building technique typical of this area of Catalonia. Cadaqués was a place where the rebellious generation mingled with artists and writers who, among lime and sea salt, sought tranquility.

Sant Martí Vell and Blue Montserrat

All Elsa Peretti’s houses in Sant Martí Vell are painted in Blue Montserrat only in the Sala Grande, in the niche of a radiator between dark stones, is a panel painted in Blue Klein, the most intense and compact shade. Not far from this corner, we find two chairs in oxidized green bronze, cast from a tree trunk and carved with elliptical geometry.

A kitchen counter and a living room with shiny black leather sofas – a table in the center covered with books, magazines, eclectic objects, and ornaments – the arrangement of the tables has the value of an installation: the chromatic harmony of the covers, the volumes on planes and levels.

The staircase forms the vault of the fireplace – the lime is fixed by a reed mat to give it care; the imprint of the multitude of stems is visible. This fireplace was designed by Lanfranco Bombelli, owner of the Cadaqués Gallery, together with Peter Harnden.

The gallery was the cultural center of the area, exhibiting and selling works by all the artists who vacationed on that stretch of coast in the summer. In 1966, Marcel Duchamp signed a $10 check for the gallery which was never cashed. When Harnden died, Bombelli organized a sort of final exhibition to raise funds and restore the Cadaqués cemetery where Harnden had indicated he wanted to be buried.

Richard Hamilton’s Release and the Swinging London

The dialogue between local art and global art when eclecticism becomes ironic, perhaps cynical. The table is 18th-century millstone. A cast of the hand of Maria Luigia Pighini – Elsa Peretti’s mother – is a plaster work by an unknown artist. On the wall above, Hiro’s photos: Japanese fish and fighting birds.

Old Catalan local art recovered from private collections as well as from village junk dealers is juxtaposed with contemporary American art. Local art and global art are in dialogue. Again, we might say eclectic – but the dimension is one of irony, lightness, and perhaps even a touch of cynicism. Richard Hamilton’s Release is part of the Swinging London series: Mick Jagger and Robert Fraser, also known as Groovy Bob, are handcuffed and taken away by the police in a car – they were arrested for illegal drug possession.

With Release, Hamilton elaborated on one of the tabloid photos taken by paparazzi hunting for celebrity and criminal scandal. He worked with 17 colored stencils. The series consists of 150 pieces, one of which is here in Sant Martí Vell.

Duchamp, bullfighting, and the Battle of Versailles

Elsa lived in all her Sant Mart Vell houses both interconnected and independent. Wherever she found herself in the evening, in the nearest room, she would stay to sleep. Toothbrushes in every corner – the service staff was always there. A Duchamp painting, a small collection of Matisse – Matisse was also part of the village scene in the 1970s.

Bullfighting scenes in homage to her zodiac sign – Elsa Peretti was born on May 1st, 1940. Everything revolved around her love for animals, for dogs, and for birds that flew in and out of the house windows. Open aviaries, nests on the walls for swallows. The kitchen walls were left black with soot, never whitewashed – a cavern of black and shadow, the table was set with candelabras – those candles were so long and thin, so difficult to find and buy today.

In a photograph, Elsa walks on Fire Island, at that time a protected destination for the subversive, promiscuous, and gay artistic community. The shot is by Charles Tracy in 1972. Elsa wears a dress by Stephen Burrows, one of the five designers who would participate the following year in the Battle of Versailles.

The other four were: Anne Klein, Bill Blass, Oscar de la Renta, and Halston – competing in a fashion show against Hubert de Givenchy, Yves Saint Laurent, Pierre Cardin, Emmanuel Ungaro, and Marc Bohan for Dior. The idea was Eleanor Lambert’s, seeking funds to finance the restoration of the castle. The French presented couture, while the Americans presented graphic clubwear: miniskirts, stripes, and sequins. Elsa was there with Halston; Liza Minelli, Marisa Berenson passed from front to backstage.

Biomorphic Nature, a Photograph by Colita, the Snake Skeleton, Christo, and the Water Cistern Tower

Ralph Rucci found a definition for Elsa Peretti’s style: it was called biomorphic nature. Beyond any form of eclecticism, Elsa captured the curve and line of muscles and cartilage.

Other framed photographs hang on the walls. In a shot by Colita, Elsa is seen among the stones of Sant Martí Vell. Elsa might be in a construction site of one of her houses, in a corner of the square, on the edge of a road close to the forest. Elsa is picking something up from the ground – it’s a snake’s skeleton. Elsa would make a cast of it, then have it cast in silver and even gold – today, Beyoncé wears it around her neck.

Candles of roses and figs. Narrow rooms, just a few square meters, an entrance, a stove, two steps, a kitchen. On the wall, a work by Christo, The Gates at Central Park in New York. At the back, a garden – in another image, Elsa is seen sitting in the shade, her back against the stone and lime wall, talking to Ian Sanderson, a Scottish photographer whom Elsa met during a shoot for the Financial Times in 2009. Beyond the garden, a pool with a glass wall in the submerged section through which you can see the valley, and those who arrive see only a blue rectangle, like a serene stone trapped between rocks.

Elsa liked the concept of something broken, something fragmented. In the other corner, the cistern tower for collecting rainwater. When Elsa arrived at Sant Martí Vell, water was carried into the house on people’s shoulders.

Carlo Mazzoni