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The Steins Collect: Matisse, Picasso, and the Parisian Avant-Garde
A fascinating, in-depth exploration of the groundbreaking art collections of Gertrude Stein and her family
As American expatriates living in Paris, the writer Gertrude Stein, her brothers Leo and Michael, and Michael's wife Sarah were absolutely pivotal in shaping the city's vibrant cultural life in the early 20th century. They hosted Saturday evening salons at which the brightest artists, writers, musicians, and collectors convened to discuss the latest developments. They aggressively promoted and collected emerging painters and sculptors, particularly their close friends Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso. And along the way they developed unparalleled holdings in modernist work by such figures as Paul Cézanne, Juan Gris, Francis Picabia, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Lavishly produced and featuring more than 600 images, The Steins Collect is the first comprehensive exploration of the Steins' extraordinary collections and their enduring cultural influence. The book explores the Steins' impact on art-making and collecting practices in Europe and the United States; the intense sibling rivalries that developed around key artists and ideas; the roots of Leo's aesthetic theories in the thought of William James and Bernard Berenson; Sarah and Michael's role in founding the Académie Matisse; Gertrude's complex relationship with Picasso and their artistic influence on each other; Le Corbusier's radical villa design for the family; and much more. The Steins Collect not only reveals the artistic prescience of this innovative family and their important patronage, but also traces how they created a new international standard of taste for modern art.
Published in association with the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Exhibition San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (05/21/11-09/06/11) Grand Palais, Paris (10/03/11-01/20/12) The Metropolitan Museum of Art (02/21/12-06/03/12)
As American expatriates living in Paris, the writer Gertrude Stein, her brothers Leo and Michael, and Michael's wife Sarah were absolutely pivotal in shaping the city's vibrant cultural life in the early 20th century. They hosted Saturday evening salons at which the brightest artists, writers, musicians, and collectors convened to discuss the latest developments. They aggressively promoted and collected emerging painters and sculptors, particularly their close friends Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso. And along the way they developed unparalleled holdings in modernist work by such figures as Paul Cézanne, Juan Gris, Francis Picabia, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Lavishly produced and featuring more than 600 images, The Steins Collect is the first comprehensive exploration of the Steins' extraordinary collections and their enduring cultural influence. The book explores the Steins' impact on art-making and collecting practices in Europe and the United States; the intense sibling rivalries that developed around key artists and ideas; the roots of Leo's aesthetic theories in the thought of William James and Bernard Berenson; Sarah and Michael's role in founding the Académie Matisse; Gertrude's complex relationship with Picasso and their artistic influence on each other; Le Corbusier's radical villa design for the family; and much more. The Steins Collect not only reveals the artistic prescience of this innovative family and their important patronage, but also traces how they created a new international standard of taste for modern art.
Published in association with the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Exhibition San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (05/21/11-09/06/11) Grand Palais, Paris (10/03/11-01/20/12) The Metropolitan Museum of Art (02/21/12-06/03/12)
- GenresNonfiction
492 pages, Hardcover
First published May 31, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
October 23, 2011
My only quibble: Some of the plates could have taken up more room on the page. Here, bigger would have been better in many cases.
Otherwise this is a beautiful and interesting book, the exhibit catalog of one of my favorite recent art exhibits.
I was able to get to the exhibit only once, unfortunately. Reading this book seemed to take forever, but it deepened my knowledge and appreciation of the exhibit. I’m interested in art history and really enjoyed this book.
Informative essays, and much included from the exhibit including the art work, photos, correspondence, etc. And the art is spectacular!
Anyone interested in modern art, art collecting, art history, the Steins, Picasso, Matisse, and other artists’ work and biographical information included in this book, and gorgeous art books will find much to like in this book.
It’s a bit overwhelming to get through, and many readers will prefer to read bits and pieces or simply view the plates. It’s a gorgeous book, however it’s read/viewed. It’s a heavy sucker, and feels like one of the books that might kill me in the next big earthquake, but only one of many “dangerous” books. And, I have the paperback edition, not the hardcover edition, but they’re identical except for the binding.
The painting that is the book’s cover illustration is owned by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and is one of two Matisse paintings they own that was the inspiration for this wonderful art exhibit and this catalog.
4 ½ stars
Otherwise this is a beautiful and interesting book, the exhibit catalog of one of my favorite recent art exhibits.
I was able to get to the exhibit only once, unfortunately. Reading this book seemed to take forever, but it deepened my knowledge and appreciation of the exhibit. I’m interested in art history and really enjoyed this book.
Informative essays, and much included from the exhibit including the art work, photos, correspondence, etc. And the art is spectacular!
Anyone interested in modern art, art collecting, art history, the Steins, Picasso, Matisse, and other artists’ work and biographical information included in this book, and gorgeous art books will find much to like in this book.
It’s a bit overwhelming to get through, and many readers will prefer to read bits and pieces or simply view the plates. It’s a gorgeous book, however it’s read/viewed. It’s a heavy sucker, and feels like one of the books that might kill me in the next big earthquake, but only one of many “dangerous” books. And, I have the paperback edition, not the hardcover edition, but they’re identical except for the binding.
The painting that is the book’s cover illustration is owned by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and is one of two Matisse paintings they own that was the inspiration for this wonderful art exhibit and this catalog.
4 ½ stars
July 10, 2017
Very good book that describes the visionary that Leo Stein was in seeing the very best artists. Interesting background on their Saturday night salons. Lots of color on the very colorful Gertrude. Great insight on Sarah and Michaels art collection and relationship with Matisse.
July 27, 2012
A review of the show, which was posted on a local art site of ill-repute:
For many people, “The Steins Collect: Matisse, Picasso and the Parisian Avant-garde” may feel like the answer to a prayer they weren’t aware they’d said. Unlike the collection of their friend and contemporary Albert Barnes, the Steins’ was constantly changing, the result of complex group finances and interactions, and was never allowed to ossify in the manner Barnes insisted his should. To visit the Steins is to have a dream – a sense reinforced in an early room of the exhibition, where ghostly images of their first homes in Paris are projected on multiple walls, with eerie results.
One thing many viewers will observe right away is how small most of the work is. The exhibition notes make very clear that although the Steins had money, it wasn’t enough to allow them to invest in work by well-known artists. Even the very smallest Cézannes were costly to them. Through a lifetime of collecting, they rarely purchased anything very large, even from younger artists, and while their collection would eventually come in its way to define the “get it before it breaks out” art-world of the twentieth century, it had its origins firmly in the nineteenth: there were Japanese prints and Renoir nudes. A tiny Manet, seen here in the second room, was the largest they could afford.
In a sense, then, Matisse and Picasso, at that time mostly unknown, along with Raoul du Gardier and Henri Manguin – now more obscure than ever – were a substitute, as the Steins must themselves have been to ambitious artists in search of ready money. It was a good match, nevertheless: the Steins, subject to a Jamesian revelation of Paris, embraced not just the art but the life-style that went with it, the brothers refusing to wear closed shoes and Gertrude living openly with her lover, Alice. Artists and patrons became friends.
The work itself is a joy, and placed in its context by Leo’s early love of Renoir, the boldness of high Modernist experimentation can once again be experienced in its breath-taking audacity. Matisse’s Woman with a Hat (1905) is a scream of colour announcing a style that pushes Cézanne to breaking point, but still refuses to abandon volume; a series of blue-period Picassos lead up to the African-inspired studies for Les Demoiselles d’Avignon via his large Boy Leading a Horse (1906) and the commanding portrait of Gertrude (of which he famously said that although it didn’t look like her, “it will” – and indeed it does).
The Steins were dedicated enough to their friends that they helped fund and religiously attended the Academie Matisse. A self-portrait by Leo shows him struggling, unsuccessfully, to incorporate his teacher’s strong green shadows. (It appears from the work on display that of all the Steins, it was Sarah who had the most natural painterly ability.)
Given their interest in colourist work, it is surprising no Stein was more drawn to Bonnard, whose Siesta of 1900 is surely the most erotically sensual painting on display – but perhaps it was for that very reason. The Steins apparently were united in a love of the bold, but sexuality does not figure strongly, even after they ended their cohabitation and potentially divisive issues of orientation became moot.
A change begins after the Great War, and by the end of WWII it has solidified irreversibly: Gertrude, now a famous (and famously challenging) author and in a sense more invested in experimentation because of it, came to seek out the new for its own sake. Meanwhile, the artists she had previously favoured were both too expensive and, as the last room of the exhibition suggests, no longer producing great work. Picasso’s colourful late-stage cubism is a parody of his own daring explorations. Even Matisse’s enjoyable Tea of 1919 shows the tendencies that would later become the facile self-satisfaction of such 1940’s work as The Peasant Blouse (not in this exhibition), although his portraits of Michael and Sarah remain haunting, and his 1919 Bay of Nice is enticing for its depth of perspective and exaggeratedly high horizon line.
More saddening perhaps is Gertrude’s acceptance of poor substitutes. The exhibition ends with no fewer than three portraits of Gertrude and one “homage” (her favourite subject was apparently no secret). Each is worse than the next. Picabia offers a cartoonish version of pre-cubism Picasso, including a ham-fisted variation on Boy Leading a Horse and a prentice-work portrait. Meanwhile André Masson’s The Meal (1922) is pseudo-cubism, drained of both urgency and colour, a work in which riot has become rote.
It is a sad end to the show to see the novelist and once proud champion of great art so reduced. There is something like relief to find that the lump of black metal waiting in the hall beyond is Balzac, his back to you, monumental even in this appropriately scaled-down version of Rodin’s powerful portrait.
For many people, “The Steins Collect: Matisse, Picasso and the Parisian Avant-garde” may feel like the answer to a prayer they weren’t aware they’d said. Unlike the collection of their friend and contemporary Albert Barnes, the Steins’ was constantly changing, the result of complex group finances and interactions, and was never allowed to ossify in the manner Barnes insisted his should. To visit the Steins is to have a dream – a sense reinforced in an early room of the exhibition, where ghostly images of their first homes in Paris are projected on multiple walls, with eerie results.
One thing many viewers will observe right away is how small most of the work is. The exhibition notes make very clear that although the Steins had money, it wasn’t enough to allow them to invest in work by well-known artists. Even the very smallest Cézannes were costly to them. Through a lifetime of collecting, they rarely purchased anything very large, even from younger artists, and while their collection would eventually come in its way to define the “get it before it breaks out” art-world of the twentieth century, it had its origins firmly in the nineteenth: there were Japanese prints and Renoir nudes. A tiny Manet, seen here in the second room, was the largest they could afford.
In a sense, then, Matisse and Picasso, at that time mostly unknown, along with Raoul du Gardier and Henri Manguin – now more obscure than ever – were a substitute, as the Steins must themselves have been to ambitious artists in search of ready money. It was a good match, nevertheless: the Steins, subject to a Jamesian revelation of Paris, embraced not just the art but the life-style that went with it, the brothers refusing to wear closed shoes and Gertrude living openly with her lover, Alice. Artists and patrons became friends.
The work itself is a joy, and placed in its context by Leo’s early love of Renoir, the boldness of high Modernist experimentation can once again be experienced in its breath-taking audacity. Matisse’s Woman with a Hat (1905) is a scream of colour announcing a style that pushes Cézanne to breaking point, but still refuses to abandon volume; a series of blue-period Picassos lead up to the African-inspired studies for Les Demoiselles d’Avignon via his large Boy Leading a Horse (1906) and the commanding portrait of Gertrude (of which he famously said that although it didn’t look like her, “it will” – and indeed it does).
The Steins were dedicated enough to their friends that they helped fund and religiously attended the Academie Matisse. A self-portrait by Leo shows him struggling, unsuccessfully, to incorporate his teacher’s strong green shadows. (It appears from the work on display that of all the Steins, it was Sarah who had the most natural painterly ability.)
Given their interest in colourist work, it is surprising no Stein was more drawn to Bonnard, whose Siesta of 1900 is surely the most erotically sensual painting on display – but perhaps it was for that very reason. The Steins apparently were united in a love of the bold, but sexuality does not figure strongly, even after they ended their cohabitation and potentially divisive issues of orientation became moot.
A change begins after the Great War, and by the end of WWII it has solidified irreversibly: Gertrude, now a famous (and famously challenging) author and in a sense more invested in experimentation because of it, came to seek out the new for its own sake. Meanwhile, the artists she had previously favoured were both too expensive and, as the last room of the exhibition suggests, no longer producing great work. Picasso’s colourful late-stage cubism is a parody of his own daring explorations. Even Matisse’s enjoyable Tea of 1919 shows the tendencies that would later become the facile self-satisfaction of such 1940’s work as The Peasant Blouse (not in this exhibition), although his portraits of Michael and Sarah remain haunting, and his 1919 Bay of Nice is enticing for its depth of perspective and exaggeratedly high horizon line.
More saddening perhaps is Gertrude’s acceptance of poor substitutes. The exhibition ends with no fewer than three portraits of Gertrude and one “homage” (her favourite subject was apparently no secret). Each is worse than the next. Picabia offers a cartoonish version of pre-cubism Picasso, including a ham-fisted variation on Boy Leading a Horse and a prentice-work portrait. Meanwhile André Masson’s The Meal (1922) is pseudo-cubism, drained of both urgency and colour, a work in which riot has become rote.
It is a sad end to the show to see the novelist and once proud champion of great art so reduced. There is something like relief to find that the lump of black metal waiting in the hall beyond is Balzac, his back to you, monumental even in this appropriately scaled-down version of Rodin’s powerful portrait.
March 12, 2012
Many people know that Gertrude Stein lived in Paris in the first half of the 20th century and was the center of an important circle of modern artists and writers. It's less known that Gertrude had siblings. She lived with her brother Leo in the years before Alice Toklas came along, and her brother Michael and his wife Sarah also lived in Paris for many years. All were devoted to art and artists and amassed remarkable collections. This book documents an exhibition that has been shown at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Grand Palais in Paris, and (now) at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, It is full of beautiful color plates of work by artists like Gaugin, Cezanne, Matisse, and Picasso. It also contains many interesting essays about the different members of the Stein family and their impact on art history. Of particular interest is a complete reproduction of Sarah Stein's notes from her art class with Matisse. The book is very beautiful to leaf through, and also makes for compelling reading.
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July 31, 2011Very nice exhibit documenting thecollecting style of the Steins. Gives their personal histories, which, except for Gertrude's, are actually rather sad. As a collection of paintings it comes close to being yet another impressive Matisse/ Picasso show, but the exhibit and catalougue are book-ended by works by Cezanne, Renoir at the beginning, and less known, though very interesting painters at the end.
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July 6, 2011Just arrived!
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews