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"Connections and Why They Matter"
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Gertrude Stein's was born in 1874 in Pennsylvania and raised in Oakland California. She moved to Paris in 1903. She associated with Hemingway, Picasso and other famous artists and writers. Her book tells us about Picasso and his life as a great painter.
In 1904, Picasso rented a studio in an old, dilapidated building in Paris filled with artists and poets located at 13 Rue Ravignan in Paris. Picasso painted Stein between 1905 and 1906 in a style foreshadowing of his adoption of Cubism—and portrays her face like a mask with heavy lidded eyes.
Picasso was one of the innovators of Cubist artwork where objects are analyzed by breaking them up and reassembling them in an abstracted form and Steins seems compelled to defend the art form in this book and mentions that in 1909 when Picasso had completed the Cubist paintings Horta de Ebro and Maison sur la Colline that she was shown the photographs that inspired the paintings.
We learn from Stein’s writing how much Picasso’s home in Spain shaped his approach to art which was considered ahead of its time or avant-garde. She was one of the first Americans to claim that about his work.
Stein's close relationship with Picasso provided her with a unique vantage point to the man and his approaches.
