From February 29 to March 13 Christie’s Paris is showing the personal collection of Colin Peter Field, the former barman of the renowned Bar Hemingway at the Ritz Paris. Auction estimates range from €100 to €1,200.
         Over three decades of Bar Hemingway’s existence in the rear of the Ritz, Field acquired a cache of historic objects related to the Nobel Prize-winning American author, many of which were hung or set in the bar, including a stag’s head (€400-€600); a buffalo head (€300-€500); a pair of boxing gloves (€700-1,000), commemorating significant fights; framed fishing flies, including two that belonged to Jack Hemingway, the writer's son (€300-€500), and rods (€400-€600); and four antique typewriters— two of them a gift from the bar’s habitue and Field’s friend Kate Moss— of the kind Hemingway used to write his short stories and novels on. Field would invite guests to write letters on them.
         The items also include Field’s own unique tools and cocktail shakers  of a kind he’d use to make a Hemingway Bloody Mary and daiquiri—one round and egg-shaped (from €500 to €1,000 ), a champagne cork box (€100-€150), six Puiforcat glasses engraved “Colin Field and Hemingway Bar” (€600-€800), and a very rare copy of The Cocktails of the Ritz Paris by Field (€100-€150).
       Fields was crowned “the world’s best bartender” by Forbes magazine, the London Times called him “legendary,” and he was the first bartender to be included in France’s Who’s Who in 2011.
         Hemingway claimed to “liberate” The Ritz on August 25, 1944, but there was no bar then for him to frequent. After the war, the space was called Le Petit Bar, whose clientele included Marlene Dietrich, Ingrid Bergman, JFK, Noël Coward and Truman Capote. The bar was closed in the 1970, but re-opened as the Hemingway Bar on August 25, 1944, to coincide with the 1945 liberation of the city. Field, born in England and fluent in French, took the job as barman and helped attract an international clientele to the small, wood-lined watering hole on the Rue Cambon.
         Two years ago Field, then 62, left The Ritz for a life that didn’t keep him up until two in the morning, now consulting and doing events like a fashion event at the Palais Galliera, Monaco yacht week and Formula 1. Eventually he plans to open a guesthouse outside of Paris. He now lives outside of Paris in a country house, from which plans events.
         I interviewed Field about the upcoming auction.

 

Did you acquire all the auction objects yourself , or were they bought by The Ritz for the bar?

The objects in the Hemingway Bar were all bought or acquired by
myself. I did not have a decoration budget. Indeed, the hotel never thought that the bar would work and expected it to close in six months or less. That was in 1994. So, I listened to the guests' comments and sort of garnished the walls, with their advice. I would spend my trips going to antique fairs and getting the right stuff. There were also gifts from friends, hunting pals, journalists, etc.

So, you own them all. Did you contact Christie’s or vice-versa?

Christie’s have known about the objects for quite some time. They know me and visited the bar on several occasions to see me and the objects. The original Le Petit Bar opened in 1923. It was a small room without a bar counter situated opposite the main bar, which did not serve ladies. Bertin, the bartender, started at Le Petit in 1926 when a counter was installed. Hemingway came to the Ritz around 1926 first with Scott Fitzgerald. They were there to see an old friend of Fitzgerald, the Count Von Blixen. Hemingway knew him and his wife Karen from a New York-to-France crossing on the Leopoldina and wanted to say hello. He’d also come to the bar to read the racing turf newspapers on the tables, which are still in the bar. He would take the bartenders bets and then go to Vincennes to place them. He first came to the Le Petit Bar and got to know Bertin, whom I spent many hours with personally. 

Were you the Hemingway Bar’s first bartender?

No. I was going to write another book about Frank Meier, the first head bartender. But the more I knew about his real life, the more I thought that it was better kept secret. Hemingway said 'It’s easy to write a book. You just sit in front of a typewriter and ... BLEED.” I will let someone else do the bleeding.

You never met Ernest but you have spoken with others of the Hemingway family?

I enjoyed spending time with [son] Jack Hemingway from 1994 to his demise in December 2000, if my memory is correct. We would talk and talk about shooting and hunting, and I would try to invite him to my shooting club just outside of Paris. Jack didn't have a French hunting license, so the hunt was out of the question. But he was always so, so busy.


What about Hemingway’s acquaintances? 

An amazing amount of people would come to the bar to tell me about Hem. Perhaps they knew him personally. Sometimes it could be Jack's granddaughter or fishing acquaintances; once it was [son] Gregory Hemingway’s wife. She was very charming and we talked frankly, no holds barred, about Gregory. I could go on forever.

Why did model Kate Moss give you two typewriters?

The hotel never wanted me to go to Kate’s house to make cocktails for her. They wanted Kate to come to the Ritz. But I had known her for so long that I really wanted to do it. It wasn't professional, it was just friends. But they said, "No." So, that was that. Orders are orders in the Ritz. In the night following the encounter, Hemingway's ghost must have played a role. Forbes digital, written by Charles Dubow, came out with an article about me being the world’s best bartender! So,  I was called back to the hotel. Congratulations and a "what would you like?" With the possibility of a pay increase floating in the room, I opted rather for the hotel letting me go to Kate's house and do her cocktail! Kate knew that I was always looking for typewriters to garnish the bar. She was and is a lovely person and at the end of the day offered me a superb typewriter, which she did on another occasion too.


Were any of  the items actually owned by Hemingway? 

None of the objects was owned by Hemingway. Although there is a mixing glass, owned by Bertin at the time, which was used to make Martinis for Hemingway. Bertin gave it to me in 1995. I once asked Jack if he had anything from his Dad, even a sock. He replied that he had absolutely nothing.