GERTRUDE STEIN

[July 2012]

Gertrude Stein was already living in Paris before the heyday of the 20s, arriving in 1903 and staying in Paris for the duration of her life.  The avant-garde Germain-Jewish American writer and poet received her first work of critical acclaim with the publishing of the novel Three Lives (1909), and was financially stable by the time the Lost Generation arrived in the 20s.  Along with her brother Leo, and lover Alice B. Toklas, they shared apartment 27 on Rue de Fleurus.  In A Moveable Feast, Hemingway recalls being invited over with his wife Hadley and seeing the eclectic paintings that graced the walls of her apartment.  She acted as a mentor of sorts for the artists of the Lost Generation and invited them over for weekly salons to discuss their drafts and engage in creative and political conversations.  She was kind and welcoming, but honest when it came to their work and their writing.  Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Ford Madox Ford, and James Joyce among others, frequently found themselves coming to Stein with their latest writings for helpful criticisms and an encouraging voice.  This highly opinionated mama-san of the expatriates was highly influential in guiding these young artists and was a bit harsh--sometimes too harsh--in urging and expressing their need to find their own literary and artistic voice.  As it turns out, her persistent encouragement helped, as Hemingway found his trademark style of realism, short sentences, violent depictions, and the abandonment of the Romantic style, which is illustrated best in his novel A Farewell to Arms.  A patron of the arts and one for nonconformity, Stein’s apartment was filled with works by Cezanne along with the wildly colored and crude figures found in the works of Matisse.  Interestingly, it was Stein who arranged Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso to meet for the first time.  In 1906, “Stein took Matisse to Picasso’s studio...” and they, too, joined the writers at her weekly salons (Trachtman).