Gertrude Stein

Gertrude Stein was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania in 1874. Her innovative writing was inspired by the exploration of time and place in cubist art, which she collected extensively at her welcoming salon in Paris. Along with her brother, she was among the first to recognize the genius of post- impressionist painters. At her salon she hosted artists and writers who were largely unknown at the time such as Ernest Hemingway,T.S. Elliot, Ezra Pound, James Joyce, and of course Picasso, who painted her portrait (a rendition of which appears on the plate). Her innovative literary style employs heavy abstraction although her only commercial success was her memoir (The Autobiography of Alice B.Toklas) which is a standard narrative. Stein's legacy stands as much on the merit of her fearless work, as on her larger than life personality, and the cultivation of a generation of great writers and artists. She died in 1946 in France.