The Stein collection : Matisse, Cézanne, Picasso at Grand-Palais, Paris, until january 16th 2012

Anna Wintour saw it on sunday afternoon before everybody and I was invited this morning for the pre-opening of the wonderful exhibition devoted to this great family (2 brothers and a sister, the famous female poet Gertrude Stein) who lived in early 20th century in Paris in Montparnasse district, on the legendary left bank, where they received all the parisian avant-garde : Picasso, Matisse (they were their very first collectors), Braque, Apollinaire, Man Ray, Gris… and  also Hemingway and Fitzgerald.

The show explores  their tastes and how they built it, from modernity printed with a certain classicism (Manet-Renoir-Degas-Cezanne) to avant-garde,  and how they participated to the adventure of 2 most important artistic trends : fauvims and cubism, weaving strong relationships with artists, as the one between Gertude Stein and Picasso illustrated with the amazing proto-cubist portrait below :

– But the portrait doesn’t look like the model  ! said the  sceptical viewers when the poet organized a party to celebrate the new painting hung in their appartment rue de Fleurus.

– It doesn’t matter replied Picasso, very confident. One day, the model will look like the portrait.

Copyright Adagp Paris 2011- Copyright succession Picasso 2011-Copyright succession Matisse photo Moma San Francisco 2011