Gertrude Stein

(1874-1946)

Gertrude Stein (1874-1946)



Born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, Stein
was educated at Radcliffe College and
the medical school of Johns Hopkins
University.



In 1903 she settled in Paris, France,
where she lived for the rest of her life.



In 1907 she met American writer Alice
B. Toklas, and the two lived together.

Early works:



Three Lives (1909), character studies of
three women;



Tender Buttons (1914), a book of
experimental verse;



The Making of Americans (1925), a
novel dealing with the social and
cultural history of her own family.

Innovations:



an unconventional narrative form



a simplification and fragmentation of plot



radical innovations in syntax and
punctuation



rhythmic repetition of words to explore
the consciousness of her characters



experiments with the uses of language



Lectures in America (1935), a collection of talks

on literature, painting, which contains some of

her theories of composition and music.



Lucy Church Amiably (1930), a novel;



The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (1933),

which was actually Stein's own autobiography;



Four Saints in Three Acts (1934), an opera with

a score by the American composer Virgil

Thomson;



Paris France (1940), an appreciation of her adopted
country.



Wars I Have Seen (1945) is the story of her daily life in
France under the German occupation during World War II,



Brewsie and Willie (1946) is a sympathetic study of
American servicemen in France whom she befriended.



The Mother of Us All (1947), an opera based on the life of
the American social reformer Susan B. Anthony, with
music by Virgil Thomson;



Last Operas and Plays (1949); and Two and Other Early
Portraits (1951).

Art



The Stein-Toklas apartment in Paris was the center of an

important literary group, where writers such as

Sherwood Anderson, Ernest Hemingway, and Thornton

Wilder were encouraged by Stein in the development of

their own literary styles.



Her salon was frequented by such 20th-century

masters as the Spanish artist Pablo Picasso and the

French painter Henri Matisse.



Stein was a patron of early 20th-century painting,

especially the cubist movement.



She was instrumental in bringing modern art to the

attention of a wide international audience.



Stein's papers were
bequeathed to Yale
University.



Her art collection is
dispersed in several
U.S. collections.

Henri Matisse, Woman with a
Hat, 1905. San Francisco
Museum of Modern Art

Pablo Picasso,
Portrait of Gertrude
Stein, 1906, oil on
canvas.
Metropolitan
Museum of Art,
New York.
Stein bequeathed
the portrait to the
Metropolitan in
1946.