Questions and Answers

From time to time I’ve been asked whether I’ve read all of Gertrude Stein’s works and all of the other Stein-related books that I have in my collection. I must honestly say ‘No’ though I have heard of some Stein collectors who have read all of her works and also of some who supposedly have read none of her writings.

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”

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In my children’s book Gertrude and Alice and Fritz and Tom, which I hope will soon reach the bookstores of the various museums where the Stein exhibitions are being held, the two young boys who visit rue de Fleurus encounter the atelier’s floor-to-ceiling paintings for the first time:

“Look at this really rambling room!” whispered Tom.  “There are masterful modern paintings floor to ceiling!  It looks like a museum!  I hate museums, everything in a museum is musty and moldy.”

Fritz pressed his nose against one of the paintings.  “This person has four flaming eyes and three thick ears and is not musty and moldy!”

Tom Hachtman's Fritz and Tom

I can assure you that there is also nothing musty or moldy at  The Steins Collect exhibition which opened last week at SFMOMA !

In the 25+ years that I’ve been obsessed with GertrudeandAlice I have had moments more extraordinary than the proverbial “aha!”  moments. I  would have to say that they are  more like  “ah Stein!” moments!

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“When the moon is in the Seventh House
And Jupiter aligns with Mars
Then peace will guide the planets
And love will steer the stars…”

Now you’re saying “He really has had too much of Alice’s special treat !” But no, really,  Summer 2011 in San Francisco is the Summer of Steins – I’ll bet my fringed suede vest and bell-bottomed jeans with the floral-fabric inserts at the bottom that it’s a fact!

The exhibition Seeing Gertrude Stein: Five Stories will be at The Contemporary Jewish Museum from  May 12 – September 6, while The Steins Collect: Matisse, Picasso, and the Parisian Avant-Garde will be at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art from May 21 – September 6.

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Various materials and precious metals or gems have over the years been assigned to anniversaries  – paper for the 1st up to diamonds for both the 60th and 75th.  I have no idea who established this custom, but whoever it was must have realized that once one has been married either 60 or 75 years, even though a diamond may be forever, they don’t have too many forevers to enjoy and the heirs will soon be grabbing those family jewels.

I have not seen a comparable tradition for birthdays other than assigning precious or semi-precious gems as birthstones to correspond with the month of one’s birth. In the case of April the diamond is generally listed as that month’s birthstone though opal and sapphire have also appeared on some lists.

So today on Alice’s 134^th birthday, let’s add a diamond to the birthday feather for her birthday hat and celebrate with a spot of tea.

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Last year on this date, the anniversary of Alice’s death, I posted a blog emphasizing the importance of Alice’s middle initial.  If  you’d like to revisit it, just go to March 2010 in the Archives.

This year, thought, I would like to keep it brief and simple with a tribute collage I once made. On this date it honors the woman who helped Gertrude Stein be Gertrude Stein.  The photo is followed by one of the hundreds of love notes Gertrude sent to Alice.

Baby looked so pretty with a big hat on

lovely black hair,

Baby looked so pretty with no hat on

lovely black hair,

Baby looks so pretty with its little head

and its lovely black hair sleeping sweetly

on its hard pillow,

Baby looks so lovely, precious baby, baby

looks so lovely precious precious baby

The gift giving holiday season  drew  to a close several weeks ago with Epiphany,  January 6th, the day that according to legend the Magi arrived to give the Christ child their gifts. Two of the regal visitors brought somewhat useless gifts, frankincense and myrrh, and one gift, that small chest of gold, must have come in handy for his young, homeless parents. But come to think of it, all three gifts were far more useful than the 12 lords a-leaping that end that dreadful “Twelve Days of Christmas” dirge!

The Epiphany a la Lego!

Although this year’s holiday “must-have” electronic devices proved to be diverse, from this “I-thing” to that “I-thing,” one of the best-selling, non-I-things, was amazon.com’s Kindle e-reader.

The Kindle I have was handed down to me when an I-Pad entered our household. (The days of hand-me-down itchy sweaters or too short corduroy  pants are long gone!)

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It’s Thanksgiving time and time to talk “food,” as if many of us need a holiday as an excuse to talk food!

In the annual food issue of The New Yorker magazine this past week, there is an article by Laura Shapiro, “The First Kitchen,”  about the cuisine in the White House during the tenure of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt.  Apparently the food was quite horrible, but not because of the Depression or World War II, but because of the cook that Mrs, Roosevelt had hired, a Mrs. Henrietta Nesbitt.

I couldn’t help but wonder if during their visit to the White House for tea in December, 1934, GertrudeandAlice encountered any of Mrs. Nesbitt’s culinary curiosities.  And if they did, were they the perfect guests NOT whispering in Eleanor’s ear that “This Mrs. N. has got to go, for the health of the country!”

FDR carving the Bird!

As we celebrate Thanksgiving this year, let’s turn to tastier things.

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One of the benefits of a blog is that it can be timely and even though a few posts ago I had listed upcoming things that I’d planned to write about, my recent trip to Japan got in the way.  (I began the draft of this post in our hotel in Kyoto, two days before our return, though I  verified a few facts in books I have at home before I published this.)

Leo Stein in a rakish pose

Just for fun while in Kyoto, I decided to do a Google search for “Leo Stein Japanese prints,” as I knew that Leo had an interest in this type of art.  These prints had come to the attention of Westerners as they were used to wrap Japanese porcelain which became very popular following the opening of the country in the 1860’s.  This art form also influenced the subject matter and composition of the Post-impressionists’ paintings.

Japanese print circa 1895. Is it a rose?

To my surprise (why am I still surprised at what turns up on the Internet – must be the fact I haven’t graduated to texting and tweeting and am still an old-school e mail writer!) an item appeared that is in the Stein collection at Yale – a note Leo wrote to Gertrude from Kyoto in December, 1895, giving her his address written in Japanese!

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Today, one hundred years ago, the moving van arrived at 27, rue de Fleurus and Alice B. Toklas’s belongings were unloaded and she moved in with Gertrude Stein!  They had first met almost three years before to the day.  Since that meeting, coming to ’27’ on a daily basis became a part of Alice’s routine and though she had undoubtedly begun to assume some household responsibilities during that period, she had most notably become the primary typist of Gertrude’s manuscripts.

A picture postcard of Paris, 1910.

Alice had been living in an apartment on rue Notre Dames des Champs within walking distance of rue de Fleurus with her San Francisco neighbor Harriet Levy.  When Harriet decided to return to San Francisco, she asked Alice to handle shipping her furniture and paintings including a Matisse.

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Seventy-three years ago tomorrow, an obituary appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle. But first:

All families, I assume, have skeletons in their closets. Often these bones are fleshed out by  stories that have become embellished over the years of a relative who did this or that and forever became the black sheep of the family – as if  most families are all lambs from a  pure, white flock!

Biographers of well-known people relish unearthing these skeletons to get all the facts that are (usually) fit to print. This juicy information helps to sell books as reviewers often highlight these tidbits. (The recent Kitty Kelley biography of Oprah comes to mind.)

The Armoire, 1778

In the case of GertrudeandAlice, there were skeletons in their closets and I don’t mean the fact that they were lesbians and never really “came-out” of the armoire.  (Their close friends knew the score and many of Gertrude’s writings give plenty of hints about the relationship between her and her “secretary/companion.”)

Gertrude had three brothers and a sister, but one usually only hears about two of the brothers, Michael, the eldest and  Leo, who was two years older than she was.  Michael had been responsible for selling the family’s share in the street car business in San Francisco after their father’s death, giving the Steins enough money to live comfortably for almost fifty years.  And both Michael and Leo along with Gertrude were responsible for amassing the famous Stein family collection of major artists of the early 20th century.

The Steins circa 1881:( l to rt) Simon, Gertrude, Father,Michael,Mother,Leo and Bertha

It was the two other siblings, Bertha and Simon, who have been relegated to skeletons-in-the-closet status, though as far as I know neither did anything horrendous including bad-mouthing any of their more well-known kin, so maybe it would be fairer to call them “tibias or fibulas in the closet.”

Maybe Gertrude should take the heat for estranging this sister and brother. She referred to both of them as “simple-minded” in her book EVERYBODY’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY – not exactly the kind of sentiment that brings families together.  Simon did have a simple life, first working as a brakeman on the San Francisco cable cars (he had to retire from that job when he gained too much weight and later ran the stationery and cigar concession in an Italian grocery store. Bertha lived in Baltimore, married, raised a family and had no contact with her brothers and sister. Gertrude,however, wrote word portraits of two of her sons, Daniel and Arthur.

Simon may have put the brakes on along this route on San Francisco's Castro Street

But then we come to Alice.

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