🧵 View Thread
🧵 Thread (13 tweets)
Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) was born to a wealthy family, raised in Oakland CA. Both her parents died by the time she was 17. At Radcliffe College, she was a student of William James, who called her brilliant and encouraged her to go to med school. She got bored and flunked out https://t.co/13AvlZ8RA3
"She had spent many of her evenings not applying herself to her studies, but taking long walks and attending the opera." 😍 Her uncorseted physical appearance and eccentric mode of dress aroused comment and she was described as "Big and floppy and sandaled and not caring a damn" https://t.co/OqCHQp6uaS
In 1902 her brother Leo (left) left for London hoping to pursue an art career, and Gertrude followed – and a year later they relocated to Paris. Here Gertrude would host a weekly Saturday night salon that attained legendary status, which is the reason I'm making this thread https://t.co/wZP6IxGWLX
Who attended her salons? Some of her guests that you might recognize are: Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sinclar Lewis, Ezra Pound, Sherwood Anderson and Henri Matisse. Here's Gertrude in her Paris studio, with portrait of her that was painted by Picasso https://t.co/4oJH9F99qT
According to art critic Henry McBride, the Steins' art collection was "just about the most potent of any that I have ever heard of in history." He observed that Gertude "collected geniuses rather than masterpieces. She recognized them a long way off." https://t.co/dbx1YpItAD
her words: "for me, all modern painting is based on what Cézanne nearly made... he insisted on showing his incapacity: he spread his lack of success: showing what he could not do, became an obsession for him." https://t.co/G31va5pJtJ
"I am I because my little dog knows me, even if the little dog is a big one." – Gertrude Stein https://t.co/QcZyYCFAFL
some of Gertrude's feedback as a beta-reader of The Great Gatsby https://t.co/F9qOn9kl7p
"a mecca for the modern-minded" eventually Gertrude couldn't afford Picasso's paintings "She was often charged with being a cult-writer, supported by an influential and fashionable coterie of friends" https://t.co/yVrSksOPGL https://t.co/hmv7t9ikFK
"the creator of the new composition in the arts is an outlaw until he is a classic" https://t.co/djeKfXo5Mf
melted my heart to witness this lady at The Met teaching a bunch of kids about Gertrude’s work 🥲❤️ https://t.co/6i690gqLtF
