Gertrude Stein was one of the first Americans in Paris to respond with enthusiasm to the 20th century modernist revolution in European art. Alongside her partner Alice B. Toklas, she supported many emerging artists – including Matisse, Cézanne, Braque, and Picasso. For Picasso in particular, this early patronage was vital to his later success.
Picasso famously said, "Everybody says that she does not look like it but that does not make any difference, she will," which was quoted by Stein in The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas. Stein said later, "I was and still am satisfied with my portrait, for me it is I, and it is the only reproduction of me which is always I, for me."
Gertrude Stein liked her portrait. To those who protested at her mask-like features, Picasso replied, "everybody thinks that she is not at all like her portrait but never mind, in the end she will manage to look just like it". And apparently she did.
Stein swore that they were no different than the photographs. Stein’s most notable experiment with "verbal Cubism" was her book of poetry Tender Buttons, a series of prose poems divided into "Objects," "Food," and "Rooms."
Like many European artists at the time, Picasso looked to ancient and non-western art as a source of primitive inspiration —a colonialist notion that viewed “uncivilized” cultures to be more spiritually authentic than the sophisticated cities of Europe.
Gertrude and Picasso. At the time of his commission, Picasso hoped to cultivate a relationship with the wealthy Stein, who had already been impressed by the innovative style of Matisse. Henri Matisse, Bonheur de Vivre, 1905-06, oil on canvas, 175 x 241 cm. (The Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia)
The story goes that Stein sat for Picasso so many times (as many as 90 sittings) ...
Painted in dull, muted colors, Stein’s broad body fills Picasso’s canvas. Her bulky form sits on a large armchair or sofa and stiffly leans forward, imposing in the way she rests her arms and large hands heavily on the folds of her skirt.
Picasso, Portrait of Gertrude Stein. In 1904, Picasso rented a studio in an old, dilapidated building in Paris filled with artists and poets. Located at 13 Rue Ravignan, the building was dubbed the Bateau-Lavoir (or laundry barge) by poet-in-residence, Max Jacob.
It was at this time that Picasso first came into contact with French painter Henri Matisse, as well as the American expatriate Gertrude Stein. Gertrude commissioned a portrait by Picasso in 1905, around the same time that her brother Leo bought Matisse's Bonheur de Vivre. As the strong solid woman of Picasso’s painting suggests, Gertrude Stein was a formidable presence in Paris of the early 20th century. An influential writer, she, along with her brother, was an important patron of the arts, known for hosting salons that brought together some of the period’s most famous artists, writers, and intellectuals.
As the strong solid woman of Picasso’s painting suggests, Gertrude Stein was a formidable presence in Paris of the early 20th century. An influential writer, she, along with her brother, was an important patron of the arts, known for hosting salons that brought together some of the period’s most famous artists, writers, and intellectuals.
Like many European artists at the time, Picasso looked to ancient and non-western art as a source of primitive inspiration — a colonialist notion that viewed “uncivilized” cultures to be more spiritually authentic than the sophisticated cities of Europe.
According most portraits tell us about the sitter through their physical likeness and expressive detail, Picasso instead showed his subject as a massive hulking figure who stares blankly past the viewer.
The story goes that Stein sat for Picasso so many times (as many as 90 sittings) that eventually he said he could no longer see her when he looked at her. He then wiped out her face in the painting and left on a trip to Spain.
Painted in dull, muted colors, Stein’s broad body fills Picasso’s canvas. Her bulky form sits on a large armchair or sofa and stiffly leans forward, imposing in the way she rests her arms and large hands heavily on the folds of her skirt.
As the strong solid woman of Picasso’s painting suggests, Gertrude Stein was a formidable presence in Paris of the early 20th century. An influential writer, she, along with her brother, was an important patron of the arts, known for hosting salons that brought together some of the period’s most famous artists, writers, and intellectuals.
Gertrude and Picasso. At the time of his commission, Picasso hoped to cultivate a relationship with the wealthy Stein, who had already been impressed by the innovative style of Matisse. Henri Matisse, Bonheur de Vivre, 1905-06, oil on canvas, 175 x 241 cm. (The Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia)
The Power of the Artist. By reworking Gertrude Stein’s portrait in a primitive style, Picasso claimed for himself the power to represent the woman as she really is, not merely as a likeness of her physical appearance. Stein’s response to the image supports this point of view. In her book on Picasso, she wrote:
In 1905-1906 Picasso painted Gertrude Stein’s portrait in his Montmartre studio: after eighty or ninety sittings, the result – according to their mutual friends – did not resemble Gertrude Stein in the slightest. Picasso’s response was to shrug. ‘Never mind’, he replied, ‘in the end she will manage to look just like it’.
It wasn’t until 1905, after the Salon d’Automne in October, that the first Picasso found its way into the Stein collection. It was a fairly conventional nude – ‘Young Girl with a Basket of Flowers’ – but it caused considerable friction in the Stein household. Leo loved it, but Gertrude hated it: ‘something rather appalling in the drawing ...
An invitation to the Stein salon was considered a rite of passage into the Modernist movement and every week, after Picasso had finished his painting for the day, he and his lover Fernande would walk across Paris with Gertrude Stein to the rue de Fleurus.
In 1914, Leo Stein relocated to Settignano, Italy, near Florence. The split between brother and sister was acrimonious and Gertrude Stein did not see her brother again for almost thirty years. In the division of their art collection, Leo took sixteen Renoirs but left most of the Matisse and the Picasso to his sister, ...
According to Gertrude Stein herself, from 1906 to roughly 1910, the Stein family controlled the Picasso output, since they were the only ones that wanted it. That probably wasn’t an exaggeration and it would certainly seem that, without Gertrude Stein, Picasso’s story would have been very different.
Alongside her partner Alice B. Toklas, she supported many emerging artists – including Matisse, Cézanne, Braque, and Picasso.
Most of the credit has gone to her brother Leo, who has been lauded as one of the ‘most discerning connaisseurss and collectors of 20th century painting in the world’. Gertrude Stein, as the prominent champion of Picasso, has been relegated to the wings.
Stein’s literary portrait of Picasso "If I Told Him," completed nearly twenty years later and first published in Vanity Fair, is a similarly strange but tender attempt to capture a resemblance of his genius. It begins: "If I told him would he like it. Would he like it if I told him.". As a painter might wonder if he is flattering his subject ...
As a painter might wonder if he is flattering his subject sufficiently, Stein wonders if Picasso will like the "portrait" she writes for him as he hears it told back to him—his own Cubist philosophies translated into language.
In fact, Stein continues to defend the representational nature of Cubism throughout her life, as if one could only get to an exact "resemblence," or image of life, through the distortion, repetition, and altering of the present moment to mimic perception.
In her 1938 book Picasso she mentions an incident in 1909 when Picasso, after having completed the Cubist paintings Horta de Ebro and Maison sur la Colline, showed Stein the photographs that inspired the paintings.
Stein’s most notable experiment with "verbal Cubism" was her book of poetry Tender Buttons, a series of prose poems divided into "Objects," "Food," and "Rooms.".
In the early 1900s, Gertrude Stein’s residence in Paris became a gathering place for artists and writers. Some of the visitors who frequented 27, Rue de Fleurus were the young experimental painters whose work Gertrude and her brother Leo Stein had been collecting: Picasso, Braques, Manet, Renoir, Cézanne, Matisse.
But as the number of visitors and the frequency of the salon-evenings increased, Stein's friendship with Picasso blossomed. She became more and more certain of his genius.
The portrait of Gertrude Stein was begun in the winter of 1905 and dragged on into the spring of 1906.
Artist: Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) Medium: Oil painting on canvas. Genre: Portrait art. Movement/Style: Expressionism. Location: Metropolitan Museum of Art. For an interpretation of other pictures from the 19th and 20th centuries, see: Analysis of Modern Paintings (1800-2000). ART EVALUATION.
Cezanne had used exactly the same means, a curved-back chair and a corner, to establish the axis in his Portrait of Mme Cezanne, and this was clearly Picasso's point of departure. Compare the timidity of Casagemas in La Vie (Life) (1903, Cleveland Museum of Art), with Stein's imposing presence.
For his most famous neoclassical works, see: Two Nudes (1906, MOMA, New York); Seated Woman (Picasso) (1920, Paris); Large Bather (1921, Musee de l'Orangerie, Paris); and Two Women Running on the Beach (The Race) (1922, Musee Picasso, Paris). The portrait at once reveals a dramatic change in Picasso's style, and the stages that led to this change. ...
Upon returning to Paris from his holidays, Picasso immediately painted in the face and presented Gertrude Stein with the finished portrait. The new face stands out from the rest of the painting.
Portraits by Pablo Picasso are invariably highly innovative and this one is no exception. It was painted around 1906, towards the end of his 'Rose period', after he painted Girl in a Chemise (1905, Tate Collection), and Boy with a Pipe (1905, Private Collection). This was just prior to his brief African phase which led him into Cubism - first Analytical Cubism and then Synthetic Cubism - when he painted the Portrait of Ambroise Vollard (1909, Pushkin Museum, Moscow). See also Woman in White (1923) from his 'neoclassical period'. For more on this, see: Neoclassical Figure Paintings by Picasso (1906-30).
Looking back on the event, Fernande Olivier, Picasso's mistress at the time, recalled that on first meeting Gertrude Stein, Picasso "was so taken with the woman's physical personality that he suggested doing her portrait before he was actually acquainted with her".