Gertrude Stein

Portrait of Gertrude Stein, by Carl Van Vechten (1880-1864), literary executor of the artist

Quoting from Wikipedia (that you should always check, though you cannot cite as an academic source, as we have already commented in class), "Gertrude Stein (February 3, 1874 – July 27, 1946) was an American novelist, poet, playwright, and art collector." Nowadays considered one of the most important artistic figures in modernism whose influence goes well beyond the literary world, Stein gathered at her home in Paris not only many seminal writers (from two generations of US Expatriates), but also painters, actors, and musicians. Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), one of the artists who was an habitué of her salon at 27 Rue de Fleurus, painted Stein's portrait (which you can find at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, here), and the writer dedicated him a poem, "If I Told Him : A Completed Portrait of Picasso”(1923) that you can hear read by her here.

Probably, Stein's most famous work is The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (1933), which pretends to adopt the autobiographical mode in the name of her life-long companion, Alice B. Toklas (1877-1967). Her most well-known line is "Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose," from the poem "Sacred Emily," that you can find here.

For more information on Stein, go the Poetry Foundation page here, where you can also find some of her more iconic poems. You can also listen to some more of the artist's readings and operas and watch her experimental films at Ubu Web (a valuable source of avant-garde art works also mentioned in our class), here.