And today, once again Our Ms. Stein celebrates her 138^th birthday. (Just imagine how quickly time must pass once you’ve reached 138?!)

The year past has been most eventful for Steiniacs around the globe and I’m already beginning to hear about new Stein events in the new year: theatrical productions, workshops and literary conferences.  Just register with Google Alerts and enter “Gertrude Stein” if you’d like to be kept in the know. Also go to the “Quoting Gertrude Stein” link on the right, and Renate provides her Stein year in review.

The question of what to get for a 138 year old birthday “girl” would stump even the most gifted of personal shoppers.  I’m sure she had/has it all.  What more could one ask for than a roomful of Picassos and Matisses (and Alice) especially at today’s auction prices?  It could put Facebook’s pending IPO to shame – and then maybe not!

So what I offer today as a gift to one and all is a drawing that Tom Hachtman did for me a number of years ago.  I think it is very appropriate as it shows GertrudeandAlice at one of their favorite activities – eating.

"Birthday Crockery!" copyright 2001, Tom Hachtman

What the concoction in the Crockpot is…I’ll let you all use your imaginations.  But whatever it is,  everyone gathered around the table seems to be very pleased and happy!  What more can we ask for on any birthday?

Life is too short.  Time passes too quickly. Grab that Crockpot from the back shelf of the kitchen cabinet and  concoct something that will make you happy too!

Happy Birthday, Gertrude Stein!

The SEEING GERTRUDE STEIN exhibition will close at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC on January 22^nd and anyone who lives nearby or has a few frequent flier miles to burn and hasn’t seen it should still make an effort to go.

National Portrait Gallery aglow with Gertrude a few more weeks!

I had seen it more than 10 times in San Francisco and was still blown away by the installation in DC which gave the show a totally different feel. The various rooms in the NPG lent themselves perfectly to telling Stein’s five stories and the decision to hang some of the paintings salon style was genius as it transported viewers back to the rooms in rue de Fleurus, where art was hung floor to ceiling.

The other Stein exhibition in DC at Stanford University’s art gallery INSIGHT AND IDENTITY: CONTEMPORAY ARTISTS AND GERTRUDE STEIN has been extended until March 18th because of the excellent response. That exhibition features works by Australian artists Gisela Züchner-Mogall and Suzanne Bellamy; U.S. artists Laura Davidson, Tom Hachtman, Sally Schuh, and Katrina Rodabaugh; and German artist  Anne Büssow. First editions of the books that inspired the artists are also displayed.  Stop by the NPG and then the Stanford gallery and you’ll have a most satisfying day of Gertrude overload!

Installation shot: Katrina Rodabaugh "Dress Project" and Gisela Züchner-Mogall's hand-written MAKING OF AMERICANS!

There will also be a one-day Stein writers’ workshop in the gallery on February 4^th, one day after Gertrude’s 137^th birthday conducted by Karren Alenier.The 10 am to 5 pm session will take place at the Stanford in Washington Art Gallery,2661 Connecticut Ave NW Washington, DC. The program, which includes an overview of Stein and her work, a tour of the exhibition INSIGHT AND IDENTITY  by me, writing time, and an opportunity to share newly created work inspired by the exhibition.

The program is open to writers of all levels and genres. The cost is $50. Participants will  be able to buy Tom Hachtman and my book GERTRUDE AND ALICE AND FRITZ AND TOM for 25% off —what a deal! Visit http://wordworksbooks.org.

Also check out Karren’s promo video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqj-DZwWO6g

KARREN LaLONDE ALENIER, poet, librettist and innovator of educational programs, specializes in creative work related to Gertrude Stein. Since 2003, she has been writing The Steiny Road to Operadom, a monthly column on Gertrude Stein and opera for Scene4.com. She is author of five volumes of poetry, with a sixth—On a Bed of Gardenias: Jane & Paul Bowles—forthcoming January 2012. Her opera Gertrude Stein Invents a Jump Early On premiered in New York in 2005 with a good review from the New York Times.

PS

And if that’s not enough of a sprint into the new Stein year, THE STEINS COLLECT exhibition returns from its journey to Paris and will be at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NY from February 28th till June 3rd.

Some of you know that over the years I’ve often sent holiday cards with various stickers or other items collaged on them. This year greetings once again go out via this blog which I’m sure does not make the ailing postal service happy.

This year’s card is the cover of Tom Hachtman’s and my book with a couple of holly stickers afixed to add a festive touch.

The book sales are going well, but there are still plenty of copies if you haven’t gotten one yet. Books have found their way to Australia, Norway, Austria and Canada in addition to many corners of the U.S.

Also, in the new year watch for book events around the globe – the Artful Adventure Tour is just beginning!

Wishing you the happiest of holidays !

The book has arrived!

The book has arrived!

It has arrived. The book.

The book that is not a chair.

A chair that is not the book.

But the  book sitting there.

Chair.

So there.

With my attempt at Steinese, I am so happy to announce that the first shipment of GERTRUDE and ALICE and FRITZ and TOM has reached the U.S. shores from the printer in Singapore. (Actually they arrived by air freight, flying above the shores, with the larger shipment coming by sea and literally reaching our shores in Los Angeles in a few weeks on a ship named England.}

The book is beautifully printed and bound.

Gertrude and Alice and Fritz and Tom by Hans Gallas Illustrations by Tom Hachtman

My previous post told the tale of how the book got to be and now will come the book’s marketing adventures!

If you have any favorite bookstores that should be stocking the book, let me know. I’m also planning events highlighting the book around the country and abroad in the next six months.  I’ll keep you posted on those here and on Facebook.

All ideas of people I should contact and places I should go are welcome.

You can order your copy (or copies) by clicking on the book‘s cover in the right column or going to gertrudeandalice.com/fritzandtom and the book will be on its way. Books are $19.99 for the 72 page hard cover edition with a dust jacket and can be paid for through PayPal.

Once the final shipment arrives, I’ll also be setting up purchasing through amazon.com.

One box of books has actually made a return trip across the Pacific to my friend Jane Turner’s book shop, the Gertrude and Alice Café Bookstore in Bondi Beach, Australia.

Gertrude and Alice Cafe Bookstore well-stocked

How fitting that the first bookstore in the world to stock the book is named after Our Ladies of Rue de Fleurus.

Gertrude and Alice and Fritz and Tom would certainly chime in to agree.

...the deed is done!

Well, I’ve done it too and feel a bit like a parent dropping off his first child at kindergarten hoping for the best as tears well-up and Miss Crabtree leads the young one away to join the other rascals.

Miss Crabtree in charge

So what is it that’s been done – the children’s picture book which I’ve been working on for…let’s just say many,many years is on its way to a printer in Singapore!

Even before the finished book headed across the Pacific, it’s been a long day’s journey into…take your pick of O’Neillian nouns! (My, this has become a drama laced post!  Must fit in Mr. T. Williams before I’m through.)

GERTRUDE AND ALICE AND FRITZ AND TOM came about after I read a chapter in a memoir by Fritz Peters, BOYHOOD WITH GURDJIEFF.  The book tells of Fritz and Tom Peters’s stay at the boarding school outside of Paris in the mid-1920s run by the mystic George Gurdjieff.  The boys would often visit GertrudeandAlice.  These visits away from the discipline and structured environment of the school must have been a welcome getaway for Fritz and Tom.

The book features one of their Thanksgiving visits to rue de Fleurus and the “perfect plan” that Gertrude Stein drew up to teach them about the historic and artistic sites of Paris. It’s all there: Picasso, their dogs Basket and Pépé , their apartment filled with paintings “floor to ceiling,” Alice’s food, Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, rides around Paris in their favorite car Godiva and a bathtub scene with Gertrude lounging in a bubble bath!

The boys  were the nephews of Margaret Anderson who with Jane Heap founded one of the 20^th century’s most important literary magazines, The Little Review, (they were also the boys legal guardians.)  GertrudeandAlice were not happy with their schooling with Gurdjieff and let Margaret and Jane know on more than one occasion. (I have long felt that GertrudeandAlice were great fans of children and sincerely cared about them.)

Tom (left), Jane Heap and Fritz (right) circa mid-1920s

I first wrote the story in rhyming verse, a la Dr. Seuss, one of my childhood heroes.  But after showing it to my good friend Bruce Kellner, he recommended re-writing it as prose unless I was willing to spend a lot of time trying to get the rhyme to scan properly. (Remember scanning poetry in English class with those accented and unaccented syllables?)  I re-wrote the story and Bruce and I liked the outcome.

I had gotten to know Tom Hachtman a number of years ago after his book GERTRUDE’S FOLLIES became part of my collection. Tom agreed to do the illustrations for the book using the drawing style he’d created for the Follies comic strip.

GertrudeandAlice from the book by Tom Hachtman

Then the quest for a publisher began.  I had a very bad experience several years ago with a publisher in New York who had expressed interest in an Alice B. Toklas reader. A contract was issued and then the publisher pulled out  once a new editor entered the picture.

With self-publishing blooming a few years ago, I found a publisher I  liked who was willing to print a hardcover children’ s book with color-illustrations. Most self-publishing companies would only print paperback editions. Then the publisher was bought by amazon.com and became a part of CreateSpace and they would no longer print the book in hardcover!

My friend Kathleen Gross, who has designed the book, however worked for months with CreateSpace and we almost gave in to doing the book as a paperback edition. But then we were confronted by the proverbial last straw that broke this camel’s back —they were unable to print the title and author of the book on the book’s spine since the book was under 100 pages!  What bookstore or library (or any book purchaser) would want a book that you can’t identify on a shelf because there is no title on the spine?

And so, just as GertrudeandAlice created Plain Edition in 1930, with their address 27 rue de Fleurus on the title pages,  to publish five of Gertrude’s books, I’ve created GertrudeandAlice Editions almost eighty years later to get this book out after my other unsuccessful efforts!

One of the Plain Edition books (1933)

I found a printer in Singapore, TWP Ltd., recommended to me by the poetry editor of McSweeney’s, that incredible book and magazine publisher, not to mention a component of one of the country’s premier student writing programs, 826 National.  The printer was rated by him as among the best in the world, not a bad endorsement.

Now the wait begins. It should be six to eight weeks. Books will be available for Holiday giving, so begin your lists of who you’d like to surprise with this year’s must-have gift!  I’ll be setting up a page as part of this blog so that the book can be ordered here and I’ve created a Facebook page for Gertrude and Alice and Fritz and Tom to get the word out through that network. I’m not a big Facebooker, but let’s see how that goes. I’ll also see about getting it on amazon.com. There are a number of bookstores around the country that I’ll get books to, as well as shipping some to my friend Jane Turner at the Gertrude & Alice Cafe Bookstore in Bondi Beach, Australia.

So, stay tuned and like a cat on a hot tin roof, I’ll jump only if I find one hidden typo in the finished book!  You see I got Tennessee Williams in this post too —not to mention Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman!!

Maggie and Brick and Liz and Paul !

For lo and behold, 104 years ago today, Alice walked into that room at Michael Stein’s in Paris and there she was the soon to be love of her life speaking through that coral brooch on her corduroy robe!  And as I and many, many other Stein folk have said or written: “The rest is history!”

As I was thinking about what to post for this year’s anniversary and what photograph to use, glanced around our dining room and there on one of the buffets were two collaged portrait-plates. Portrait-plates, you ask?  Yes, plates on which some early 1960′s Hausfrau pasted scrapes of felt and lace and other do-dads to create a wedding shower gift. (Sometimes the portraits are painted on the plates, though the collaged ones are more desirable.)  The  plates were to represent the bride and groom, with their names usually inscribed on each of the plates.  For some reason known only to someone like  the craft editor at Good Housekeeping magazine, the collaged portraits look like a couple from the not-so gay 1890′s not the 1960′s.  (You know the couple that would be singing “On a Bicycle Built for Two” on either the Lawrence Welk Show or Sing Along With Mitch during the somewhat Golden Age of mid-1960′s American television – Norma Zimmer and whoever. )

See what I mean:

Well, anyway, we began collecting these plates while living in the Midwest and now have over 60 of them thanks to eBay.  Each couple is dressed differently and names range from Sue, Minerva, Bessie and Wilma to Joe, Cy, Hermie and Mick. A few years ago we found our first and so far only lesbian couple plates and those are the plates that caught my eye on the buffet.  There they sit Ethel and Merriel.

When and where this couple met – Cedar Rapids, Springfield, Hoboken, San Francisco – we’ll never know, but Ethel certainly carried the Alice gene and Merriel the Gertrude gene as is evident from their choice of attire.

Happy Anniversary GertrudeandAlice and I hear you’re invited to tea at EthelandMerriel’s at 4PM. Don’t expect some fancy gift, but Ethel makes a mean pound cake and Merriel favors a glass of sherry once the teapot is empty, so a good time should be had by all.

PS

If anyone sees any these plates in second-hand stores or online, please let me know.  As all collectors know, there is always room for one more or in this case two more.

the movie Von Trapps bid their adieus!

What made the exhibitions here once in a lifetime occasions is not only the enormity of the efforts to gather together such amazing works of art—books, photographs, sculptures and paintings (not to mention the furniture from 27 rue de Fleurus), but also the ties that the Stein Family and Alice B. Toklas had to the San Francisco Bay Area. I think that these ties and the ongoing curiosity about these families prompted the extraordinary reception that the Bay Area gave to these shows – almost a long overdue homecoming not experienced since GertrudeandAlice returned to the States seventy-five years ago. I don’t know what the exact attendance figures are, but I’ve heard through the GertrudeandAlice grapevine that more than 400,000 people saw the exhibitions. Every time I went to either museum, there were crowds.

I saw the exhibition at the Contemporary Jewish Museum ten times and the SFMOMA one five times.  Each time was special and I saw new things in the installations with each visit.

I toured the shows with Denny, Evie, Vishwa, Julian, Betsy, Renate, Miriam, Dyana, another Betsy, Lissa, Kiril, Trudy, Kathleen, Caroline, Walter, Monica, Laurie, Lynn, Blythe, another Monica, Tristan, and Beau.  (And gave some complimentary tickets to Jack and Christopher.) Had we all gone together, it would have been a great tour group with me at the front waving a yellow rose!  Next stop DC and Paris! Not to mention that that’s quite a list of first names for anyone who may soon have an infant joining their family!

With my brother Walter (left) and the G&A cutouts at the CJM

I was not able to attend all of the events which highlighted this amazing summer, but will pinpoint a few things that made it special for me.

The first yellow rose goes to the two books that accompany each exhibition. By weight, the SFMOMA book wins weighing in at just under seven pounds while the CJM book is about half as heavy. But as far as content and design, both books are winners.

Wanda Corn’s and Tirza Latimer’s essays provide an invaluable resource in SEEING GERTRUDE STEIN: FIVE STORIES with photographs from the exhibition as well as additional  ones which help to round out the book’s comprehensive look at Gertrude and her life together with Alice.

The various chapters in THE STEINS COLLECT edited by the show’s three curators, Janet Bishop, Cécile DeBray and Rebecca Rabinow are readable and informative.  Plus page after page of photographs of not only works of art from the Steins’ collections, but snapshots of their homes with each painting on the wall identified by a numbering code, offer a coffee table book which will be read and not just admired.

Rose two goes to other favorite things in each show, in no particular order – note the Sound  of  Music theme again:

• the furniture pieces from rue de Fleurus at SFMOMA.  What did Gertrude write at that desk and what did Alice store in that massive cabinet: Gertrude’s notebooks or her stash for that fudge?

The mysterious cabinet of rue de Fleurus!

• the Vallotton Stein portrait at CJM and one of Gertrude’s stickpins displayed nearby;

Felix Vallotton's post-Picasso portrait, 1907

• the small passport photo of Alice at CJM the year she headed to Paris and her life changed forever;

• the recently found Sarah Stein notebook at SFMOMA chronicling Matisse’s lectures to his students at the short-lived Academie Matisse;

• the wonderful wall-length display of my Stein first-editions at CJM – all the Stein you’d wish to read;

• the two Gertrude vests at CJM, her fashion statements extraordinaire;

• the Le Corbusier room at SFMOMA showcasing the Villa Stein-de Monzie so beautifully curated by Carrie Pilto with the video of a young Julian Stein, Jr. romping about;

A classic of modernity with the Stein's neo-Renaissance furniture!

• the Marie Laurencin portrait of Basket II at CJM, everyone needs such a painting of their pet;

How much is that doggie in the window?

• the VanVechten photograph at SFMOMA of Alice trying to decorate Basket I with a bunch of roses, a cigarette dangling from her mouth;

• Tom Hachtman’s astonishing DoubleTake Gertrude Steinem at CJM;

Gertrude Steinem with a touch of John Lennon

• the Picasso portrait of Gertrude at SFMOMA, so rarely on the road but always a must-see;

Alice and Janet Flanner, Paris 1955 not San Francisco 2011 !

and…you know there are too many “raindrops on roses, and whiskers on kittens,” how about a huge bouquet for everyone involved and to all of the appreciative museum visitors!?

A copout? Well, they really were amazing exhibitions which now move on, so catch them if you can.

Disappointments… let’s just say that “the pigeons on the grass, alas,”  from the Stein/Thomson opera FOUR SAINTS IN THREE ACTS left more on the grass to clean-up than they offered to their audiences as tasty squab!

Pigeons on the grass...doing pigeon things by Tom Hachtman

As these shows leave the Bay Area and one heads East to Washington, DC and the other even further East to Paris, I’d like to close with a Stein quote and new piece that I just received from my friend, Australian artist  Gisela Züchner-Mogall.

We are in no way turning our backs to the memorable views those of us who experienced the Summer of Steins have had – views that will be with us for many, many years.  But as we walk away, however, we will still remember what we’ve seen just as Alice recalled the paintings that were removed from rue Christine – the outlines where they hung were there as were the oh, so pleasant memories.

PS

And get ready for another Stein exhibition in Washington, DC in October at the Stanford Bing Gallery, INSIGHT & IDENTITY: CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS AND GERTRUDE STEIN.  I’m co-curating that one with Dyana Curreri-Ermatiger. More on the show soon!

Well, this morning before my GoogleAlert for Gertrude Stein even had a chance to send me any alerts, I got an e mail from a friend on the East Coast with this heading:

“Lesbians Booted from Gertrude Stein Exhibit – San Francisco…”

And why did a security guard try to get them to leave the Contemporary Jewish Museum…for defacing a painting? Pressing their noses against one of the Plexiglas vitrines?  Relishing an Alice B. Toklas treat while touring the show?

No, no, no…for holding hands!!!

"Semper fidelis," (detail) by Bruce Kellner, 1982

Word about this incident is apparently spreading like wildfire within the community of Stein fans, as well as in newspapers across the country. (One of my friends has proposed a “Hand-Holding, Sit-In” type of day at the museum.)

How can I not comment on this in a timely manner considering that many items from my collection are featured in the exhibition, which I hope this couple was able to view before they were so unconscionably treated!

The story, as it has unfolded so far, is that on Sunday, according to an eyewitness, a security guard told a lesbian couple that they could not hold hands in the museum.  They began arguing with the guard asking to speak with someone in authority.  A small crowd gathered and the guard attempted to get the couple to leave. According to a statement issued by the museum’s director Connie Wolf, the couple did speak with the head of security who reprimanded the guard and also apologized to the couple.

In the newspaper article that appeared this morning in the San Francisco Chronicle, a spokesperson for the museum emphasizes the museum’s support of the gay community.  Ms Wolf’s statement was even more emphatic “Please let me be crystal clear that the CJM has a zero tolerance policy concerning any type of prejudiced or racist word or action— whether directed at CJM visitors or staff.”

"Semper fidelis," by Bruce Kellner, 1982

The museum does do a lot of programming focused on the LGBTQ community and the “Queer” Stein is a major theme of the exhibition with a number of essays on the subject in the book that accompanies Seeing Gertrude Stein: Five Stories. Among the many events planned this summer by the museum, there was a panel discussion a few weeks ago, “Gertrude Stein and Contemporary Queer Culture,”  with co-curator Tirza True Latimer and Stanford University Professor Terry Castle  to “discuss Stein’s bonds with gay artists in the 1920s to 30s, and her legacy in contemporary queer culture. Moderated by CJM Director Connie Wolf.”

And this coming Sunday, one week after the incident, the museum presents “LGBT Family Morning of Stein,”  for, as their web site describes:

“a special summer Family Morning of Stein for LGBT Bay Area families, when the CJM will open early for ALL families with children. Honored guests will include the Lesbian/Gay Chorus of San Francisco, the San Francisco Lesbian/Gay Freedom Band, and Voices Lesbian Choral Ensemble! Move to the groove, tour the Seeing Gertrude Stein: Five Stories exhibition, create poetry magnets and artful roses, and enjoy tea and pastries at our “Stein Salon”. It will be Steintabulous!”

No P(ublic) D(isplay) of A(ffection) here, hands neatly folded!

But back to the security guard for a moment—what was he or she thinking when this couple strolled by hand-in-hand? And why did the guard feel that his or her discomfort with this situation had to be put into the context of the museum not allowing this kind of behavior?  If he or she had a religious belief that did not condone gay relationships or he or she felt uncomfortable around gay people or maybe even the whole theme of the exhibition made them uncomfortable, one would have hoped that some of this could have been addressed by appropriate staff training before this unfortunate confrontation occurred.  Yes, there is supposedly something known as “sensitivity training”  and maybe the security company hired by the museum requires its employees to take part in it.

In my opinion, even though the museum has requested that the guard no longer be assigned to CJM , this coming Sunday’s “LGBT Family Morning of Stein” may be the best sensitivity training to which he or she could be exposed.  And maybe, just maybe one of the gay or lesbian parents or their kids might extend a hand to the guard and prove to the guard that really, we’re all in this complex thing called LIFE together and working together to make life better for all of us isn’t a bad place to be.

PS

UPDATES  July 22nd, 2011 from  The San Francisco Chronicle:

Letters to the Editor:

What would Gertrude do?

I am coming out as one of the two women asked to leave the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco for holding hands last Sunday (“Guard’s crackdown gets out of hand at museum,” C.W.Nevius, July 19).

The director and regularly employed security staff at the museum all acted swiftly and with compassion regarding the homophobic incident. I am a supporter of the museum and hold the individual security guard (and his temp agency) responsible, not the museum.

I also appreciate the support of so many people standing up for our right to engage in appropriate (and frequently displayed by our straight counterparts) acts of public affection.

This was just one (and in the bigger scope, small) homophobic act by one individual, and while it was a distressing and awful experience, it most importantly calls attention to homophobia in its bigger arena — issues concerning safety.

I refer to this last year’s prevalence of young gay suicides (an outcome primarily brought about by homophobic bullying) and the verbal and physical abuses that gays in this country face all the time.

I hope that the column and ensuing dialogue around it can spark some productive action and positive effect. And everyone should go see the Gertrude Stein exhibit that we were viewing at the museum — it’s nothing short of brilliant.

Kaia Wilson, Portland, Ore.

And from Leah Garchik’s column:

The administration of the Contemporary Jewish Museum, engulfed in unwelcome publicity when a contract security guard told two lesbians that holding hands was not allowed there, is making lemonade from that lemon.

In conjunction with “Seeing Gertrude Stein: Five Stories,” Sunday’s previously scheduled LGBT Family Morning – to feature performances by the San Francisco Lesbian/Gay Freedom Band, the Voices Lesbian Choral Ensemble and Lesbian/Gay Chorus of San Francisco – has been declared Hand Holding Day as well. Visitors are encouraged “to come stroll hand-in-hand through the galleries, no matter who you love, and to celebrate the LGBT families in our community.”

illustration courtesy of Gisela Züchner-Mogall

Every so often I pick up one of the books from my currently disarrayed collection to read it.  (Too many exhibitions have caused me to shuffle things from here to there and there to here, so to once again overuse Our Miss Stein’s quote: “There is no there there!”)

The other week I selected an almost 50 year old biography of the Cone sisters, Claribel and Etta,called THE COLLECTORS: DR. CLARIBEL AND MISS ETTA CONE by Barbara Pollack.

The Cone sisters with brother---NOT!

The Cones are hot right now because a number of their paintings are both in THE STEINS COLLECT exhibition at San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art and also in an exhibition at the Jewish Museum in New York City through September. The title of this post was inspired by the headline of a review of the Jewish Museum show in the Jewish Daily Forward :

“Coneheads Conquer New York: A First-Rate Collection by Two Baltimore Sisters Goes on Display”

Pollack’s book is a quick read, written in a conversational style as if she’s sitting in one’s living room, sipping a glass of sherry and telling you all that she’s heard about those rich and eccentric Cone sisters who somehow become possessed by that other rich and eccentric Baltimore family, the Steins. You know those Steins who have been buying these outrageous paintings in Paris – an obsession that the Cones soon embraced, ultimately  far outspending the Steins and even acquiring works from the Stein collections.

Claribel (1eft) and Etta (right) with a portion of the tricycle of Sarah and Michael Stein's grandson, Daniel (circa mid 1920s)

The Cones were much wealthier than the Steins acquiring most of their money from the Cone Mills, one of the countries primary textile manufacturers with a focus on denim. Sales really boomed during World War I as they were a major supplier for the U.S. Army.

The mill’s legacy is carried on today and is represented by a very slick, stylish website:

http://www.conedenim.com

Though the two sisters were inseparable in their later years, ClaribelandEtta, much like GertrudeandAlice,  Pollack’s biography chronicles their lives as very independent women.  Claribel initially made her mark as a physician at a time when there were few women admitted to medical schools, while Etta, who often assumed the role of housekeeper, could also be said to be the initiator of the Cone’s art collecting.

One of Etta's first purchases-Robinson's "Mother and Child"

In 1896, Etta was given $500 by her older brother Moses to purchase whatever she wanted to make their home more beautiful.  Etta decided to spend the money on four paintings by an American artist, Theodore Robinson, whose work she had seen in a museum a few months earlier. It was also a young Etta who learned about European art under the mentorship of Leo Stein during her first trips to Europe with some of her girlfriends.

It would be ten years later that Etta bought her first Picassos, a watercolor and an etching,  for $20, while visiting his studio with Gertrude who was sitting for the famous 1906 portrait.  Claribel met Picasso a few weeks later and Etta bought  an additional eleven drawings and seven etchings for about $2 apiece!  (It was also during these pre-Alice days that Etta was typing the manuscript for Gertrude’s book THREE LIVES.)

The sisters had met Matisse a few months earlier at Michael and Sarah Stein’s home in Paris and  by the fall of 1906, Etta had bought her first Matisse oil, Yellow Pottery from Provence. Purchases continued throughout the years, but not only paintings. Lace, antique furniture, and 15^th and 16^th century Italian fabrics joined their shopping lists on European travels. By the end of the first World War, the sisters had decided that their acquisitions warranted the establishing of a museum, which they did in their Baltimore apartments!

Matisse's "Yellow Pottery from Provence"

The collecting craze also prompted Gertrude to write a letter to Etta in 1924, which may have permanently strained their more than three decade long friendship. Gertrude had heard that there was a market for writers’ manuscripts, the one from Joyce’s Ulysses had sold for a sizeable amount, so she wrote Etta a letter:

“It seems that the latest passion of the art collectors in America is the buying of manuscripts…Someone has suggested my selling the manuscript of THREE LIVES for a thousand dollars, I don’t suppose you want to pay any such price for a manuscript but since you had a connection with that manuscript I want to tell you about it before I consider doing anything…”

a later Modern Library edition, the manuscript no where in sight!

Etta replied diplomatically:

“I do appreciate your kind thought of me in realizing my personal pride and interest in your THREE LIVES.

I simply have to face the truth and that is, I am seriously considering putting all of my income in a Renoir painting.  This, and other expenses somewhat heavier than usual are handicapping me a bit this year.”

Whether Etta truly felt insulted by Gertrude’s chutzpah to offer the manuscript that she had spent hours typing as an appropriate addition to the Cone collection isn’t totally clear, however, this incident was repeatedly recounted by Etta to friends over the years.

By the time the sisters died, Claribel in 1929 and Etta  twenty years later, their home-museum was worthy of a regular art museum. Their extraordinary collection of Matisses and Picassos as well as  other works including their two most expensive purchases, Cezanne’s  Mont Ste. Victoire for which Claribel had paid $18,000 and Gauguin’s Woman with Mango, Etta’s $15,000 purchase, were to go to the Baltimore Museum of Art “if the spirit of appreciation of modern art should improve” in that city. Apparently it did as the Cone Collection has its own wing at the museum  and remains a cornerstone of that institution’s art holdings.

Big bucks for Cezanne’s "Mont Ste. Victoire"

Etta's splurge Gauguin's "Woman with Mango"

Pollack’s book ends with an anecdote about  Matisse’s Blue Nude, one of the paintings from the Steins that the Cones had purchased. Following Etta’s death, a security guard was hired to watch their apartments because of the value of the collection.  At one point a niece of the sisters  was showing the guard some of the works and asked him if he wanted to see one of the most puzzling ones, The Blue Nude: “He stood dumb-struck before it and finally muttered. “They don’t need anybody to guard this place; nobody would steal that picture.”

Not a security risk - Matisse's "The Blue Nude"

The security guard was probably right. That picture, which was purchased for a steal by today’s standards, would never be stolen by a savvy art thief not because of  its unusualness, but because of how well-known it has become – what could you do with it?

And so, this book goes back on the shelf, but not before I copy a few phrases from Gertrude’s word portrait of the Cone sisters called “Two Women,” which is featured as part of the Epilogue:

“There are often two of them, both women.  There were two of them, two women.  There were two of them both women.  There were two of them.  They were both women.  There were two women and they were sisters.  They both went on living.  They were very often together then when they were living.   They were very often not together when they were living.  One was the elder and one was the younger.”

And they do both go on living at the Baltimore Museum of Art.

Coneheads unite!