We are in the year 1905, in Paris. Gertrude Stein, the American writer and poet, has moved into the rue de Fleurus, a stone’s throw from the Musée du Luxembourg. In her capacity as a collector of art, she has met the Spanish painter Pablo Picasso: the bonding of intellects was immediate!
What was it that brought them together? Being foreigners and outsiders, a particular sense of humour, and a great fascination with painting, especially that of the artist Paul Cézanne.
The strength of their friendship was surely confirmed when Picasso decided to paint the portrait of Stein: legend has it that this portrait (opposite) required some 90 sittings…Quite enough to allow for plenty of private conversations and to nurture their budding alliance!
Retrace, in this exhibition, the history of the two artists Gertrude Stein and Pablo Picasso in the light of their work: they influenced and supported one another in their quest for new forms of language, sharing a passion for the question of what is real and its subjective perception.
Each sought, in his or her own discipline, to reinvent an art which, freed from all narrative, would be part only of the present. Pablo Picasso worked on the simplification of forms in painting, whilst Gertrude Stein based her writing on repetition in sounds, words and syntax.
Together they overturned the worlds of pictorial and literary art, by suggesting new, radical codes… Their friendship was fundamental to the birth of cubism. Follow this development in the exhibition, from the legacy of Paul Cézanne to the beginnings of cubism, through the works of Georges Braque, Juan Gris and so many others.
The exhibition then invites you to explore the influence of this duo, and to envisage the work of Gertrude Stein as a true example of the avant-garde, with which many artists after her came to identify.
That is how the work of Gertrude Stein was echoed in the American ‘underground’ art of the 1960s, through the great choreographers of post-modern dance, Yvonne Rainer or Lucinda Childs, the music of John Cage and Merce Cunningham, the Neo-Dadaist artists Nam June Paik or Jasper Johns. Later, her work was reflected in the minimalist and conceptual art of Joseph Kosuth or Carl André, finally finding resonance today in contemporary art!
A sensitive experience of what is present, a play on forms and materiality, an aesthetic of collage, an analytical vision of art, poetry, music and theatre… the influence of the artists Stein and Picasso is immense!
For your contemplation at the Musée du Luxembourg, from now until 28th January, 2024.
