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Visiting Gertrude Stein
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by YankeeJim | January 5, 2012 at 07:33 am
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I visited the National Portrait Gallery yesterday to see the Gertrude Stein exhibit. What is our fascination with people like her?
She was a bright woman, and intellectual, who studied psychology and medicine for awhile. Her father was a wealthy businessman and his work treated Gertrude and her peers the opportunity to travel – from Oakland California to Europe where she made her home in Paris.
Distinguishing characteristics include her keen interest in art and avant-garde thinking. She shared her thoughts and intellect with artists and writers, including performance artists all of which participated in her salon lifestyle. (A salon is a gathering of people under the roof of an inspiring host, held partly to amuse one another and partly to refine taste and increase their knowledge of the participants through conversation.)
Using her wealth and intellect, she was able to assist artists and writers with gaining exposure for their work as she acquired some pieces and contributed to their development as a critic. Simultaneously, she produced her own body of writing works. The interaction among participating artists made them each stronger.
Being a lesbian woman, she developed a partnership with Alice Babette Toklas.
“ She met Gertrude Stein in Paris on September 8, 1907, the day she arrived. Together they hosted a salon that attracted expatriate American writers, such as Ernest Hemingway, Paul Bowles, Thornton Wilder and Sherwood Anderson, and avant-garde painters, including Picasso, Matisse, and Braque.”
The exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery is remarkable for the sheer number of paintings and photographs documenting stages of her life and giving tribute to her achievements.
It is inspiring for the richness of her lifestyle and the impact she made as a pioneering woman intellectual.
Gertrude Stein and her partner Alice were Jewish women, living in Paris under German occupation. That takes bravery as they often delivered medical supplies to resistance soldiers. That is amazing.
“Seeing Gertrude Stein: Five Stories features more than 25 artifacts and 100 works by artists from across Europe and the U.S., detailing Stein’s life and work as an artist, collector and distinctive style-maker. The exhibition shares an in-depth portrait of Stein that knits together her many identities: literary celebrity; life-long partner of Alice B. Toklas; arts networker whose famous friendships included some of the most prominent artists of her time (Picasso, Matisse, Braque, Hemingway); Jewish-American expatriate; and muse to artists of several generations. Stein is considered by many to be an inventor of Modernism whose reach across the arts was extraordinary. She wrote novels, poems, essays, literary and art theory, opera libretti, ballets, memoirs and children’s books and was also an arts networker, bringing creative people together in legendary salons and gatherings in her homes. Her originality as a thinker, along with her interdisciplinary approach to projects in dance, music and theater, continue to inspire artists today.
Wanda Corn, Professor Emeritus of Stanford University, is serving as guest curator, with Tirza True Latimer, Chair of Visual and Critical Studies at California College of the Arts, serving as associate guest curator.
Seeing Gertrude Stein: Five Stories has been jointly organized by the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco and the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C. Major support for the exhibition, publication and related programs has been received through a grant from the Terra Foundation for American Art.
Additional support for the exhibition’s national tour has been provided by E*TRADE.
Generous support for the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery has been provided by the Abraham & Virginia Weiss Charitable Trust, Amy and Marc Meadows; Ella Foshay; Vicki and Roger Sant; Grace Bender; Catherine V. Dawson; Stephen and Roberta Denning; Laura Peebles and Ellen Fingerman; Michelle Smith; Kenneth and Elaine Cole; Ronald and Beth Dozoretz; Anne Marie and Jerry Marenburg; Diana Walker; Sue Beddow; Charles Francis; and the Gertrude Stein Salon Circle.
Generous support for the exhibition at the Contemporary Jewish Museum has been provided by the Koret Foundation; Taube Foundation for Jewish Life and Culture; an Anonymous Donor; Osterweis Capital Management; Jim Joseph Foundation; the Leavitt Family; Michael and Sue Steinberg; Randee and Joe Seiger; Joyce Linker; Seisel Maibach; and Dorothy R. Saxe.
Essential support for the publication has been provided by Fred Levin & Nancy Livingston, The Shenson Foundation, in memory of Ben and A. Jess Shenson.
Permission has been granted by Stanford G. Gann Jr., literary executor of the estate of Gertrude Stein, for quoting Stein’s words and works.”
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Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (1)
at 07:32 on January 5th, 2012
"A rose, is a rose, is a rose." Gertrude Stein