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Gertrude Stein
(February 3, 1874 - July 27, 1946) U.S.A:

Gertrude Stein

Writer, poet

Alice B. Toklas
(April 30, 1877 - March 7, 1967) U.S.A..

Alice B. Toklas

Writer

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Writer, arts patron and collector, born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, Gertrude Stein studied medicine, and in 1904 went to Paris, where she became acquainted with Matisse, Juan Gris and Picasso, whoose works she collected.

Gertrude SteinAs a medical student, Gertrude had her sexual awakening after falling in love with Mary Bookstaver, who was in a relationship with Mabel Haynes; some argue that the emotional toll of her unrequited love contributed to Stein's decision to abandon her studies.

In 1903, Gertrude followed her brother to Paris, where she spent the rest of her life. By 1904, the Steins were collecting art and, by 1906, their collection included pieces by Gauguin, Cezanne, Picasso, Matisse, Renoir, and others. Soon, the Steins began hosting salons that 'brought together confluences of talent and thinking that would help define modernism in literature and art'; Toklas served as de facto hostess.

Gertrude's best-known writing featured distinct styles and proto-feminist themes; much of her work centered around lesbian characters.

Although Gertrude generally was a far-forward thinking progressive, she held views about immigration that many consider problematic; moreover, it is likely that Stein and Toklas - both Jewish lesbians - were able to survive World War II because of their friendship with Vichy-collaborator Bernard Fay.

Avant-garde eccentric, and self-styled genius, her Paris home was a salon for the leading artists and writers of the period between World Wars I and II.

In her work she influenced writers such as Hemingway and Scott Fitzgerald by her cinematic technique, use of repetition and absence of puntuation; devices to convey immediacy and realism.

Stein Toklas
Alice B. Toklas and Gertrude Stein, Newark, NJ, 1934. Photo by Carl Van Vechten

She lived with Alice B. Toklas, writer, for 39 years.

In the 1980s, hundreds of love letters between Gertrude and Alice were made public for the first time; they reveal the depth of the women's longtime love and devotion to one another. Stein called Alice 'Baby Precious,' and Alice referred to Gertrude as 'Mr. Cuddle-Wuddle.'

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"Kiss my lips. She did.
Kiss my lips; again she did.
Kiss my lips over and over and over; again she did. . .
I'll let you kiss me sticky. . . . "

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Alice Babette Toklas, who was born in San Francisco one hundred and forty years ago today, fled to Paris after the devastating San Francisco earthquake of 1906. On September 8, 1907, the day after Alice arrived in Paris, she met Gertrude Stein. "I was impressed by the corral brooch she wore and by her voice", Toklas wrote later. "I may say that only three times in my life have I met a genius and each time a bell within me rang and I was not mistaken, and I may say in each case it was before there was any general recognition of the quality of genius in them. The three geniuses of whom [...] I speak are Gertrude Stein, Pablo Picasso, and Alfred Whitehead."

After their meeting, Alice and Gertrude became friends and lovers and ultimately were inseparable until Gertrude's death in 1946.

Stein Toklas
Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, 1944.

While it was Gertrude's work - including The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (1933) - that gained the author more notoriety as a public figure, it was Alice who ran the couple"s famed salon (she adored F. Scott Fitzgerald, for example, while she barred Ernest Hemingway from the house).

Although Stein willed her estate to Alice, the couple's four-decade relationship had no legal significance, and Alice' efforts to keep intact their art collection - which included twenty-seven Picassos, seven Grises, and one Matisse - failed as Stein's family took action to collect the valuable pieces. Alice lived her final years in poverty.

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Source: http://lgbt-history-archive.tumblr.com/ et alii


Books:
  • Three Lives (1909)
  • Tender Buttons (1914)
  • Geography and Plays (1922)
  • The Making of Americans (1925)
  • Composition as Explanation (1926)
  • Lucy Church Amiably (1930)
  • How to Write (1931)
  • A Long Gay Book (1932)
  • The autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (1933)
  • Portraits and Prayers (1934)
  • Narration (1935)
  • Lectures in America (1936)

  • The Geographical History of America (1936)
  • Everybody's Autobiography (1937)
  • Picasso (1938)
  • The World Is Round (1939)
  • Ida (1941)
  • Wars I Have Seen (1945)
  • Yes Is for a Very Young Man (1946)
  • Brewsie and Willie (1946)
Opera:
  • Four Saints in Three Acts (1934, music by Virgil Thompson)
Click on the letter S to go back to the list of names

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