Gertrude Stein, writer and art collector

Gertrude Stein, educated at Radcliffe under the tutelage of psychologist William James, developed a bizarre writing style known for it's repetitiveness. One of her most famous lines is "Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose." Stein believed that naming the 'thing' was enough to evoke all of it's associations. In this line, the first Rose is a woman. The repetition of the word rose calls to mind redness, fragrance, etc. Today we might say, "It is what is."

Another famous quote by Stein concerns Oakland, CA where her family moved when she was 4 years old. She said, "There is no there there." One can assume that Oakland did not make a very favorable impression on the young Stein.

Gertrude Stein's most famous novel is "The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas". Alice was Gertrude's life partner. They met in 1907 and stayed together until Gertrude's death in 1946. The 'autobigraphy' is actually written by Gertrude Stein about Gertrude Stein from Alice B. Toklas' point of view and using language that Alice might have used. It chronicles much of Stein's salon life and relationships with artists of the time.

She wrote this novel to make money, and it immediately became a bestseller. Stein became famous after its publication.

Of her other works, "Three Lives" is quite accessible. She started it 1905 and completed it 1906. It was published in 1909.

Her other works such as "Tender Buttons" are less accessible, but worth reading. She tried to do for writing what Cubism had done for painting. Literary critics of the the time were often harsh, but one thing that can be said about Stein is that she did it her way.

Gertrude Stein moved to Paris in 1903. She and her brother Leo began collecting modern art in 1904 when they learned that a bunch of money had accumulated in their trust fund. They started with Gauguin, Cezanne and Renoir and moved on to Matisse, Picasso and Toulouse-Lautrec.

The walls of their flat at 27 rue de Fleurus was filled with art. People dropped by at all hours to view it. Eventually, Gertrude and Leo were forced to institute their Saturday evening salons to control the times at which people could view the art.

In 1914, Leo moved to Italy. He made an arrangement with Gertrude to split the collection in a financially equitable manner. He took all the Cezanne's and let her have the Picasso's.

Later, Stein's collection focused on Picasso and Juan Gris. She sold most of her other paintings to buy works by these two artists.

World War I broke out in the summer of 1914 when Gertrude and Alice were in England. A trip that was meant to be 3 weeks turned into 3 months. They eventually returned to France where they spent the winter, but then they went to Majorca, Spain where they stayed for an almost year-long vacation.

Gertrude was able to keep up with war news through letters with her old friend Mildred Aldrich. She returned to Paris in June of 1916 and bought an old Ford which she named "Auntie". Together, she and Alice delivered supplied to French hospitals during the war.

After World War I, many young people were disillusioned. They had seen too much death during the war and now had a hard time respecting the values of the previous generation. This was the beginning of the jazz age. Gender notions were also subject to reinterpretation as can be seen in the flappers in America.

According to Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein coined the phrase "the Lost Generation" to describe the heavy-drinking group of misfits who survived World War I and stayed on in Paris. The phrase appears in the frontispiece of Hemingway's novel, 'The Sun Also Rises', and has become closely associated with him. Gertrude Stein was his mentor and the godmother of his first child.

Stein was also friends with a number of other expatriate writers such as Ezra Pound, Sherwood Anderson, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Thornton Wilder. Due to her gregarious nature, they admired her and were influenced by her taste and opinions. Paul Bowles went to Tangier on her advice.

On her first day in Paris in 1907, Alice B. Toklas met Gertrude Stein. In 1908, she began typing Stein's writings and in 1910 they set up cohabitation. While largely remaining in the background, Alice served as Gertrude's cook, housekeeper, confidante and lesbian lover. They remained a couple until Gertrude's death in 1946.

Alice is remembered both for the book that Gertrude wrote from Alice's point of view, "The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas", and for "The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook" which she published in 1954. Although the cookbook had some 300 recipes, many of which were advanced, one recipe for "hashish brownies" became famous. Alice claimed not to have tested that one. It was left out of the first American edition.

A little known fact about Gertrude Stein is that she studied medicine at Johns Hopkins for 3 and a half years. She might have become a doctor but she did not enjoy the clinical rotations, particularly, as she wrote "the delivering of babies". As her studies moved out of the lab and to the patient's bedside, she lost interest and left school without graduating. You can read more about Stein's aborted medical career at Hopkins Medical News in the links section of this lens.