Portrait of Gertrude Stein by Pablo Picasso
(Photo: Chris Harris)
PORTRAIT OF GERTRUDE STEIN
Researched by Rochelle Almeida
47.106
Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881-1973)
Oil on canvas
Size: H-39-3/8, W 32 in.
Bequest of Gertrude Stein, 1946.
Who was Pablo Picasso?
Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) was born in Malaga, Spain, grew up in Barcelona and died in Mougins, France, where he had spent a great part of his productive and creative life since 1904. He is considered the central figure in 20th century European art and with the artist Georges Braque is credited with having initiated such revolutionary aesthetic movements as Cubism. Picasso’s personal life was characterized by a number of relationships with women, many of whom were his models and became subjects of his work and by a vastly varying series of stages or “phases” during which times his work underwent dramatic changes. Besides being a prolific painter and draftsman, Picasso was also an accomplished sculptor and printmaker and produced ceramics and theatrical designs.
Who was Gertrude Stein?
Gertrude Stein was an expatriate American living in Paris, a central figure in the French avant garde and one of the first to respond with enthusiasm to the artistic revolution in Europe during the early years of the 20th century. She nurtured and inculcated an avant garde in the visual arts that is as great as her literary contribution. She was a woman of means and her weekly salons held at her Paris apartment became a magnet for European and American artists and writers alike and her support of Matisse, Braque, Gris and Picasso was evident in her many acquisitions of their work. For Picasso, this early patronage and friendship was of major importance.
How did this portrait come to be painted?
Neither Stein nor Picasso could remember exactly how this portrait came to be painted, but it was a landmark in Picasso’s career. It was begun in 1905 at the end of his Harlequin period and before he took up Cubism. The story goes that they lived at opposite ends of Paris and Stein had to trek right across town to Picasso’s tiny studio to pose for him. According to legend, she made at least 90 trips to his studio, day in and day out. According to her book, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (1932), Picasso had never had anybody pose for him since he was sixteen years old! He was then 24 and Stein had never thought about getting her portrait painted. Anyway, it did happen and she posed for him willingly.
The Story Associated with this Work:
Picasso seated Stein in an old broken armchair and began work from the bottom of the canvas, gradually moving upwards. After at least 90 sittings, all of a sudden, he painted out her whole head, saying irritably, “I can’t see you anymore”. And so the canvas was left like that.
That summer (1906), Picasso traveled to Spain where he had the opportunity to see an exhibition of Iberian sculpture followed by another one of African Art at the Louvre, back in Paris. These proved to be a powerful inspiration. He was struck by the dynamics of those images and their mask-like faces. He returned to Paris and with no further sittings on Stein’s part, completed the painting.
Visual Details:
close examination of the painting reveals that it has a very limited color palette characterized mainly by dark browns and gray. The lack of detail results in making a powerful, stolid figure of Stein, who is shown to lean forward slightly in the armchair, as if ready to spring. The curves of her skirt seem to blend into the fabric of the upholstery. It is a powerful figure, indicative of her position in Parisian artistic circles. The composition is pyramidal with her head forming the apex at the top. Stein was an imposing woman and a staunch lesbian. The monochromatic palette only enhances her power. Following this work, Picasso became even more reductive, veering towards Cubism. After this, he painted Les Demoiselles D’Avignon (which is currently in the Museum of Modern Art).
However, when you look at the lead, you see a clear line of demarcation between the planes of her face and her hairline. Suddenly, her features are less naturalistic and appear mask-like. The hairline is very defined. There are no wrinkles on her face. Every feature is very clearly delineated. It is a two dimensional canvas surface, which looks like a hard, brittle form as opposed to her hands, which are softer.
Significance of this Painting:
It becomes clearly evident that with his trip to Spain, Picasso moved away completely from depicting reality towards depicting his conception of reality, i.e. he shifted from perception of an object or subject to conceptualization of it. He would, from then onwards, not present something as he saw it actually placed before it, but as altered by his thinking of it. Thus, his art from this point on, becomes deeply cerebral. This painting represents Picasso’s break from Realistic and Naturalistic art towards Abstract or Modern Art. From this point on in his career, it would not be empirical reality that would inform his work, but his personal vision. Picasso had succeeded in originating a movement that would take the art world by storm, so that Modern Art would never be the same again.
How did Stein react to the completed canvas?
Stein loved the work immediately and kept it in her home so that it hung above her fireplace until her death. It was very meaningful to her and upon her demise; she bequeathed it to the Met.
The story goes that when fellow artists saw it, they exclaimed with disappointed that it did not even look like her and Picasso who thought his paintings had premonitory powers, is said to have assured them that, “It will”. Apparently, he must have been gratified for his words came to pass. It is said that as she aged, Stein increasingly came to resemble the painting.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Brassai (Henry Miller) and Jane Marie Todd. Conversations with Picasso. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1999.
O’Brien, Patrick. Picasso: A Biography. W.W. Norton, New York, 1994.
Paul, Stella. Gallery Talk on “Twentieth Century Paintings at the Metropolitan Museum” given to New Highlights Tour Inductees on April 2, 2001.
Rodenbeck, Judith. Insistent Presence of Picasso’s Portrait of Gertrude Stein. Columbia University, New York. Unpublished Abstract, Fall 1993.
Stein, Gertrude. Picasso. Dover Books. New York, 1984.