Five Stories of Stein Debuts In San Francisco

By Nancy Mattoon

Félix Edouart Vallotton,
Gertrude Stein, 1907, oil on canvas.
(All images courtesy of Contemporary Jewish Museum of San Francisco.)

In Gertrude Stein's writing every word lives and, apart from concept, it is so exquisitely rhythmical and cadenced that if we read it aloud and receive it as pure sound, it is like a kind of sensuous music. Just as one may stop, for once, in a way, before a canvas of Picasso, and, letting one's reason sleep for an instant, may exclaim: "It is a fine pattern!" so, listening to Gertrude Steins' words and forgetting to try to understand what they mean, one submits to their gradual charm.

Mabel Dodge Luhan, Speculations, or Post-Impressionists in Prose, 1913.

Bachrach Studio, Gertrude Stein, c. 1903,
Photograph dry-mounted on board.

A new show at San Francisco's Contemporary Jewish Museum echoes those perceptive words from Mabel Dodge Luhan, Gertrude Stein's (1874-1946) influential friend and one-time publisher. Seeing Gertrude Stein: Five Stories is "the first major museum exhibition to fully investigate [the] fascinating visual legacy and life of Stein." It is "an art-filled biographical exploration" of Stein’s multi-faceted and labyrinthine identity.

George Platt Lynes, Gertrude Stein, Bilignin,
1931, toned gelatin silver print.

Stein's influence in the art world stretched well beyond literature to encompass ballet, opera, painting, sculpture, fashion design, interior design, and even cooking. She was a taste-maker and social networker before such categories even existed. Five Stories examines "Stein’s identities as a literary pioneer, transatlantic modernist, Jewish-American expatriate, American celebrity, art collector, and muse to artists of several generations."

Francis Rose, Alice B. Toklas and Gertrude Stein,
Bilignin, 1939, tempera and gouache on cardboard.

The first of the five stories, Picturing Gertrude, notes that "she became one of the most painted, sculpted and photographed women of the twentieth-century." Her image over the decades was somehow both à la mode and extremely individualistic. She was alternately a Gibson Girl, a New Woman, a Bohemian priestess, a schoolmarmish matron, and mannish cross-dresser. This story "presents portraits of Stein from her childhood to maturity and includes works by Felix Vallotton, Man Ray, Cecil Beaton, Carl Van Vechten, Jacques Lipchitz, Jo Davidson and others."

Cecil Beaton, Gertrude Stein 1935,
gelatin silver print.

Story Two, Domestic Stein, focuses on the relationship between Stein and her lifelong partner, Alice B. Toklas. As the exhibit press release notes, "There was no Gertrude without Alice and no Alice without Gertrude." The associate curator of the show, Tirza True Latimer, remarks, "You might say Toklas—who edited and typed Stein's manuscripts, managed her social and professional life, groomed her appearance, created her domestic settings, and archived her papers—invented the Stein we have come to know. In turn, Stein, with The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, invented Toklas."

Unidentified Artist,
Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas,
Aix-les-Bains, France, c.1927, Photograph.

The third story of the quintet, The Art of Friendship, deliberately takes the focus off Stein's most famous friends, such as Matisse, Picasso, and Hemingway, to highlight her role as mentor to a lesser known group of young, mostly gay artists, writers, and composers. Stein has been called "a collector of geniuses," and was an early champion of such diverse figures as Carl Van Vechten, Cecil Beaton, Sir Francis Rose, Samuel Steward, Frederick Ashton, Sir Gerald Berners and Virgil Thompson.

Cecil Beaton, Sir Francis Rose and Gertrude Stein,
Bilignin, 1939, gelatin silver print.

Celebrity Stein is the title of the fourth story, which concentrates on the perception of the writer in her native country of the United States, and her adopted homeland of France. In 1934, Stein and Toklas undertook a seven-month lecture tour across the U.S. According to the show, "the American press followed them every step of the way, yielding far more coverage, headlines, and news photographs than Stein had ever elicited abroad." The other aspect of this story covers the lives of the two women as expatriates in France during both World Wars. During World War I, Stein and Toklas were instrumental in distributing Red Cross supplies throughout France. Their tenure in Nazi-occupied France during World War II is much more complicated and controversial. Stein's refusal to leave Vichy France is seen by some as both monumental self-importance and a complete denial of her Jewish heritage.

Carl Van Vechten, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas
Departing Newark Airport with Zuni Fetishes,
November 7, 1934, gelatin silver print.

Story Five, Legacies, looks at the visual survival of Stein as a literary legend and "an icon of queer culture." It includes caricatures, cartoons, and photographs as well as fine artworks inspired by her literary importance, "magnetic personality," and open lesbian lifestyle. Works here include images of Stein by Andy Warhol, Felix Gonzales-Torres, Red Grooms, Glenn Ligon, Deborah Kass.

Deborah Kass, Let Us Now Praise Famous Women #3,
1994-5, silkscreen, ink and acrylic on canvas.

Seeing Gertrude Stein: Five Stories will be on view at the Contemporary Jewish Museum from May 12 through September 6, 2011. An online photo gallery is available at the Museum's website to give virtual visitors a taste of the show's flavor.
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Cashing-In on an Author's Death (18th Century Edition)

by Stephen J. Gertz

Yes, I knew [fill-in full name]. Though we met only once, I knew [fill-in last name] better than anyone else, or, at least, in a different way than any other person who has ever lived.


We met while in the check-out line at the supermarket. I was shy, and so waited a few minutes before assaulting [fill-in first name] with an introduction. Though our conversation (no idle chat, that) was brief, in those five momentous minutes we shared a lifetime of experience. 

I believe that when you trade tales of bruised fruit; wilted vegetables; rancid meat;  a fish so fresh you want to slap its face;  how, as in life, the cookie always crumbles when you least expect it; the virtues of Oreos v. Malomars; the state of tomatoes in New York City v. Los Angeles; and when did, all of a sudden, Balsamic vinegar become a necessary addition to American pantries; etc., you've broken through the surface and are mining a deep vein of gold, each word from [fill-in nickname]'s mouth a 24-karat revelation too precious to keep to myself.

At least that's what my agent said.

And so I present, My Groceries, My Self, and [Fill-in full name].

Frontispiece to the 2d Edition of Dr. Johnson's Letters (1788),
by James Sayers.

When a famous author dies, an industry of post-mortem exploitation begins. Friends and family members, close or distant, indiscreet or otherwise, or a loose acquaintance, contribute their two cents to the memory and reputation of the dearly deceased. All, of course, with the very best of intentions. A desire to ride the coat-tails of the departed's fame and make a buck, of course, never enter into the situation; it is all pure love.

The subject, and cynicism surrounding it, is not a modern phenomenon. When Samuel Johnson died quills swan-dived into inkwells and swam the crawl, sidestroke, and backstroke across sheets of paper. Often freestyle, the race to place their names alongside Johnson's led caricaturist James Sayers (1748 - 1823) to satirize these efforts as strictly dog-paddle strokes in his frontispiece to the second edition of  Letters to and from the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. by Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi (1741 - 1821).

Mrs. Piozzi and her first husband, wealthy brewer Henry Thrale, had struck a deep friendship with Johnson and treated him as a member of their family; he lived with the couple for seventeen years, until Henry Thrale's death.

Here, Sayers reproaches Mrs. Piozzi, whose Letters... was published earlier in 1788, and had earned her £500. He portrays her sitting at her desk, writing "Dear Lady...," implying that she concocted some of the letters herself. In a shroud, Johnson's ghost enters her chambers, alarms her, points to portraits of Boswell and Sir John Hawkins on the wall - both of whom Sayers censures - proffers a purse of filthy lucre to her, and recites:

Madam! my Debt to Nature paid
I thought the Grave with hallow'd Shade
Would now protect my Name,
Yet there in vain I seek Repose,
My Friends each a little Fault disclose
And murder Johnson's Fame;
First Boswell with officious Care
Shew'd me as a Man would shew a Bear
And called himself my Friend.
Sir John [Hawkins] shew'd my hearse
And [John] C....[ourtenay] pester'd me with verse
You torture without end.

When Streatham spread its friendly Board,
I opened Learning's valued hoard,
And as I feasted, prosed;
Good things I said, good things I eat,
I gave you knowledge for your Meat,
And thought th'Account was closed;
If obligations still I owed
You sold each item to the Croud
I suffer'd by the Sale,
For Fod's sake Madam, let me rest
No longer vex your quondam Guest
I'll pay you for your Ale.

Boswell had not yet published his Life of Samuel Johnson. Here, Sayers nails him for the Tour of the Hebrides (1785): In the portrait, above left on the wall, Boswell points down to the picture of Johnson and him scaling the a mountain during the Tour.

But it is Sayers doing the finger-pointing, or, rather, finger-wagging at Mrs. Piozzi, Boswell, Sir John Hawkins, and John Courtenay, whose writing about Johnson is now valuable direct source material in Johnsonia. At the time, however, it was a scandal. Now, it's business as usual.

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[JOHNSON, Samuel]. [SAYERS, James (1748-1823), caricaturist). Frontispiece for the 2d Edition of Dr. J.....n's Letters. JS [i.e. James Sayers]. [Lond. on]: Pub. by Thos. Cornell 7th April 1788. Engraving, 9 1/4 x 7 inches.

British Museum, Satires 7417.
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Image courtesy of Bernard Quaritch Ltd., currently offering this engraving, with our thanks.
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