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”
