Picasso's Portrait
The fifth and youngest child of the Daniel and Amelia Stein family, Gertrude was born on February 3, 1874 into upper middle class surroundings in Allegheny, Pennsylvania.
When she was 3 years old the family moved to Vienna and then on to Paris before returning to America in late 1878.
Her father moved the family to Oakland, California soon after their return. Her brother Leo, 2 years her senior, and Gertrude found like interests and became close allies through much of their early lives. Gertrude was 8 when she made her first attempt at writing. Reading became an obsession for her beginning with Shakespeare and books on natural history. Gertrude's love affair with words would later reveal itself in her own works. In school she was fascinated with the structuring of sentences.
In 1891 her father died suddenly, and the oldest brother Michael assumed the position of earning a living for the family. The Steins moved to San Francisco where Gertrude became intrigued by the theater and opera...a passion she would continue after she moved to Baltimore in 1892 to live with a wealthy aunt.
Gertrude entered Radcliffe College in 1893. As a student she developed a special philosophical relationship with her teacher, William James. James told her, "I hope you will pardon me if you recognize some features of my ideal student as your own."
On a particularly nice spring day during final exams in James' course she wrote at the top of her paper...
"Dear Professor James, I am sorry but really I do not feel a bit like an examination paper in philosophy today."
The next day she received a postcard from James saying, "I understand perfectly how you feel I often feel like that myself." and then gave her the highest mark in his course.
With philosophy and psychology courses behind her, Gertrude decided on a career in medicine and enrolled at Johns Hopkins University. She later studied medicine in Europe and eventually dismissed the whole idea. Wanderlust had captured her attention as she traveled through Italy, Germany, and England...living for awhile with brother Leo in London.
She returned to America to live with friends in New York. It was here that she wrote her first novel "Q.E.D.". It would, for some reason, be lost for 30 years and not be published until 4 years after her death under the title of "Things As They Are".
Leo Stein moved to Paris and took up residence at 27 Rue de Fleurus. Gertrude joined him in 1904, and would not touch foot upon American soil again for 30 years... soon becoming a legend in her own time. 27 Rue de Fleurus would be the first real and permanent home for Leo and Gertrude since leaving Oakland in 1891, and one that Gertrude would remain in for almost 40 years.
Leo had become a collector of art and Gertrude was soon to follow. Their home became known as the "Salon" with paintings literally covering all the wall space in their modest living quarters...paintings by Picasso, Renoir, Gauguin, Cezanne, and many others overflowed into every room of the household.
Many artists, writers, and critics became frequent callers at "27" for the Saturday night dinner parties. After meeting Picasso, Gertrude and the artist became close friends for many years. In 1905 she agreed to sit for the now famous portrait...later reflecting on the painting she said...
"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."
Soon "27" became so popular as a sanctuary for artists and writers that Gertrude began writing late at night, after all the guests had departed.
The San Francisco earthquake of 1906 would draw Michael Stein and his wife back to the city to check on family properties. While there, at a party being given by friends, they met Miss Alice B. Toklas. After hearing their stories of Paris and other travels abroad Alice decided to sail to Europe with a friend, Harriet Levy.
While in Paris Alice was invited to one of the Saturday night parties at "27". She soon became a regular visitor and began going to the galleries and theater with Gertrude...while helping in proofreading "Three Lives" and transcribing "The Making of Americans" manuscripts. In 1910 she moved in with Gertrude and Leo, and would remain Gertrude's companion for 39 years.
Gertrude continued to write but her abstract style was not received well by the general public. Many patrons of the arts called her a "literary cubist"...in her ability of projecting reality beyond reality, and compared her to the "cubist" painters of that time.
Her first publication in a periodical was in Alfred Stieglitz's Camera Works magazine. Although of small circulation, it was read by American people of influence in the art world.
In the spring of 1912 Gertrude and Alice went to Spain where Gertrude began working on a series of articles that would later be published in the book Tender Buttons, 1914.
Mabel Dodge, a friend of Gertrude's (a rather stout woman herself) commented after a visit to "27"... "...she was positively, richly attractive in her grand ampleur. She always seemed to like her own fat anyway and that usually helps other people to accept it. She had none of the funny embarrassment Anglo-Saxons have about the flesh. She gloried in hers."
By 1912 Gertrude and her bother Leo's friendship became strained and Leo moved out in 1913. They would have little contact with each other from that time on.
Rumors of war began to surface by early 1914 as Germans marched toward Paris. In March Gertrude and Alice left Paris after a series of bombing alerts and zeppelin raids.
They returned in 1916 and decided to help out with the war efforts by joining the "American Fund for French Wounded". A Ford automobile was shipped from America and outfitted like a truck so they could deliver supplies to hospitals around Paris. The Ford was nicknamed "Auntie" in honor of Gertrude's aunt in America.
A friend, W.G. Rogers later commented on Gertrude's driving..."...she regarded a corner as something to cut, and another car as something to pass, and she could scare the daylights out of all concerned."
After the war everything seemed changed and unsettled in Paris. These years would be dubbed "The Lost Generation" ...the world disillusioned by war, it was a time of Hemingway, Fitzgerald and others writers to express this sense of lost direction and idealism. Hemingway said on meeting Gertrude..."It was a vital day for me when I stumbled upon you."
The old Ford "Auntie" was replaced by "Godiva", so named because of its nakedness of all amenities. They returned to their country home in Bilignin where she would produce some of her best works. Although her name was now well known, limited publication of her works prevented her from being widely read.
Gertrude's first taste of fame would come with the publication of "The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas" in 1933. It became a best seller in America and turned her into an instant celebrity. The Atlantic Monthly did a serialization of the book which got wide readership. Checks began pouring in giving her more money than she had ever known before.
Gertrude resisted going to America on a lecture tour since she did not know if she would be well received after 30 years absence, but on October 24, 1934, she and Alice arrived in New York aboard the S.S. Champlain. The crowds were enthusiastic, and the press welcomed her with open arms. The NY Times building announced her arrival in tickertape lights. One headline read: "Gerty Gerty Stein is Back Home Home Back".
They would cross the nation doing more than 40 appearances, and visit old friends and make new ones along the way...Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Sherwood Anderson, Thorton Wilder, Charlie Chaplin, and many more. Commenting on the couple someone remarked, "a large lady firmly dressed in a shirt-waist and skirt and jacket, and a smaller lady in something dark with a gray astrakhan toque...slightly suggestive of a battleship and a cruiser."
After one lecture, while being interviewed by reporters, Gertrude asked a photographer why he seemed to have been more absorbed in her speech than the others. The photographer replied... "You see, I can listen to what you say because I don't have to remember what you are saying. They can't listen because they have got to remember."
Upon returning to France in the spring of 1935 Gertrude and Alice went to their country home in Bilignin for some privacy, away from Gertrude's new found celebrity status. Rumors of war had started and she could not believe that there could really be another war in the making. In 1937 two important events happened in their lives. Their French poodle Basket died and was replaced by Basket II...and the landlord of 27 rue de Fleurus did not renew their lease, as his son wanted to move into the apartment. They reluctantly relocated to another apartment on Germain Street in Paris.
While in Bilignin during the summer of 1939 the war was quickly approaching. Gertrude and Alice made a hurried trip to Paris to get clothing, passports, and some of their paintings. By June of 1940 Paris was occupied by the Germans, and the couple would not return until 1944. Gertrude and Alice barely escaped internment in a concentration camp as Germany occupied the area around Belley. Both being of Jewish decent, their neighbors protected them, and spoke of the two women as being Americans. Soon they found themselves without money and sold some of the paintings brought from Paris. Gertrude would often walk miles for a loaf of bread. She remarked of this period:
"Alice does know how to make everything be something, we get along fine."
When liberation finally came to France it took awhile for word to get out since there were still Germans in the area. One night Gertrude heard a man on the street whistling and commented: "What a sense of freedom to hear some one at midnight go down the street whistling." They returned to Paris in August 1944 and found the paintings in the apartment untouched by the Germans. Friends began to drift back to Paris, along with many newly made G.I. friends from the war. Gertrude said she felt like "everybody's grandmother". In December 1945 Gertrude went to Brussels to speak to soldiers stationed there. While in Brussels she complained of abdominal pains which would be diagnosed as colon cancer a few months later. She was rushed to the hospital on July 19, 1946 and made her will on the 23rd leaving the bulk of her estate to Alice. On the 27th before being wheeled into emergency surgery her last words were spoken to Alice...
"What is the answer? ...without a reply, "In that case...what is the question?"
From the Web Site http://www.ionet.net/~jellenc/gstein1.html