Gertrude Stein and Pablo Picasso

Collabs are seemingly the order of the day:  Elton John + Dua Lipa, Rowing Blazers x Target, Fishwife x Fly by Jing (the best tinned fish!), Uniqlo + Ines de la Fressange, Forage Cambridge + Southern Pines Supper Club, Taylor Swift and Bon Iver. Sometimes there is an "opposites attract" kind of vibe--Target and high-end Italian design house Missoni--or a "bringing different worlds together" agenda, such as when Lady Gaga made an album with Tony Bennett.  Sometimes there is a synergy resulting in collabs that just make sense:  Branch Line's excellent roast chickens and vegetable side dishes complemented with the local Tilted Barn Brewery for a dinner celebrating the onset of fall.  (I have noticed that sometimes the collabs use "+", other times "x", and still others just the word "and."  Not sure whether to read any significance into those choices, as if the ones that use a x sign are suggesting a compounding, multiplicative kind of effect of the union.  Hmm, I wonder why none have used "U" for union?  More likely, it's just a design choice by some corporate branding executive.).  

But, of course, they're nothing new.  One of my earlier posts discussed a fantastic art exhibit featuring the joint work of Basquiat and Warhol that Kate and I saw.  This past weekend, Glenn and I went to an exhibit focusing on the Paris-based friendship and collaboration of American writer Gertrude Stein and Spanish artist Pablo Picasso.

I cannot call myself a huge fan of Gertrude Stein's writing and poetry--in small doses it can be interesting and amusing, but I have limited tolerance.  I do, though, recognize that part of her genius lay in her ability to see genius in others.  The list of artists, writers, musicians that she befriended and helped and championed over the years is remarkable:  Georges Bracque, Juan Gris, Jean Cocteau, Pablo Picasso, Sherwood Anderson, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Thornton Wilder, Paul Bowles.  In addition, she collected Renoir, Matisse, Gauguin, Cezanne, and Toulouse-Lautrec early in their careers, undoubtedly helping to boost their reputations.

I also would say that Picasso is not my favorite artist, although I deeply appreciate what he accomplished throughout his long and varied career.     

So with that backdrop, what did I think of the exhibit?  There was interesting information about their individual creative processes and how those processes interacted.  The exhibit certainly tried to draw parallels between cubist ideas and the "abstract" poetry that Stein produced.  Mostly, I appreciated the sketch of the historical milieu and its avant-garde ideas that the exhibit was able to describe.  Neither Stein nor Picasso was responsible for any of my favorite pieces in the exhibit, however.  It included many conceptual and modern art pieces that were inspired by Stein and her artistic and intellectual life, further fleshing out her remarkable legacy.  Below is a portrait of her by Warhol.

 I include a few photos of some conceptual art in the exhibit as well, which cited Stein as inspiration.

And, finally, here is a set of prints, which includes another Warhol portrait of Stein.  Together the prints are entitled "Ten Portraits of Jews of the Twentieth Century," nicknamed "Jewish Geniuses."  This was my favorite item in the exhibit, perhaps more for its historical and cultural than its artistic interest.  The exhibit did not list the names of the subjects--perhaps intentionally--and a small crowd had gathered before them speculating who each was.  Some had their phones out to google the answer.  I will let readers speculate as well, before I give you the names at the bottom of this post.  It is interesting to note that this piece attracted biting and hostile criticism when it was first displayed in 1980, with some critics accusing Warhol of antisemitism and exploitation.

Not in order (because I am not sure what the correct order is, in fact):  Sarah Bernhardt, Louis Brandeis, Martin Buber, Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, Marx Brothers, Golda Meir, George Gershwin, Franz Kafka, and Gertrude Stein.