Gertrude Stein
Writer,
art collector, self-styled genius and no lover of
Oakland
Gertrude Stein
grew up around the neighborhoods along Foothill
and MacArthur boulevards. It is said that she
returned years later and uttered her now
(in)famous quote, "There is no there
there" when she found her childhood home had
been torn down.
Oakland has been
trying to live those words down ever since! In
fact, City Hall has flown a flag that bears one
word, "THERE." The city is determined
to prove Stein wrong.
She was born in
1874 in Pennsylvania, but spent her childhood in
Oakland. When she was 14, her mother died. When
her father died two years later, she and her
brother and sister moved in with relatives in
Baltimore, Maryland.
In 1903 she went
to Paris, where she lived for the rest of her
life. She's best known for her avant-garde art
collection and encouraging young upstart artists
like Pablo Picasso. Her home in Paris was
renowned for its weekly salons, where famous
artists like Henri Matisse and writers like
Ernest Hemmingway would drop by to discuss their
latest works and seek Stein's approval.
Stein was a writer
in her own right, although her style is too dense
and convoluted for many. Her writing is highly
experimental and in it she tried to create in
literature what artists like Picasso and Georges
Braque were creating in painting--cubism, with
its fractured surfaces and changing perspectives.
In Paris in 1907
Stein met Alice B. Toklas, also from California.
The two become constant companions and lived
together until Stein's death in 1946. The two
women had a little white dog they called Box.
When Box died, they got another little white dog
and also named it Box. They must have really
loved that dog.
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Check
out some of Stein's books below and see what a
gal from Oakland can do.
Three Lives,
(1909) A story of three working-class women,
called a minor masterpiece.
The Making of
Americans, (1906-08) Her famous line "A
rose is a rose is a rose" came from this.
Warning...this one is a tough one.
The
Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, (1933) Her
most known work, which is really a biography of
herself, not her lover.
Four Saints in
Three Acts, (1934) Later made into an opera.
The Mother of
Us All, (1947) Based on the life of Susan B.
Anthony, also made into an opera.
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