Who was Gertrude Stein?
Gertrude Stein was an American writer, poet, feminist, playwright, lesbian and catalyst in the development of modern art and literature, whose partner was writer Alice B. Toklas. While living in Paris during World War II, Stein and Toklas aided the efforts of the Allies and French Resistance by operating as supply drivers for French hospitals.
The social and artistic dominatrix of the lost generation? The literary founder of modernism? The sensual companion of Alice B. Toklas? ‘Dictator of Art?’ An ‘infant prodigy?’ Stein, whose freedom with the written word, “liberated language from the 19th Century,” remains a heroine hard to grasp. Now, as the Century turns, Renate Stendhal’s Gertrude Stein: In Words and Pictures . . . takes a good look at the slippery genius. After an astonishing, playful essay, the book opens into a revelatory combination of quotes, clips, and 360 photos of Stein and her wildly brilliant circle. The subtle minimalism of Stein’s cool face, repeating page to page, like her own rhythmic sentences, brings a nuanced embodiment to our incomplete sense of her. From a serious, chin-in-air profile of “Gertie” at age three, to a chin-in-hands portrait taken at age 72, the woman is “a rose is a rose is a rose.” Bethany Schneider, Elle “Thanks to a deep, and astute understanding of Gertrude Stein’s life and work, B
Everybody’s heard of her. She’s the most famous lesbian in the world. Gertude Stein and Alice B. Toklas are the most famous lesbian couple ever, well, until maybe Ellen and Anne. Everyone knows Gertrude Stein was a writer; she wrote “a rose is a rose is a rose”. But has anyone ever read anything else she ever wrote?
