Gertrude Stein

Gertrude Stein was born on February 3rd, 1874 to Daniel and Amelia Stein. Her father was a railroad executive who became wealthy by investing in real estate and street cars. When Gertrude was 3 years old her family moved to Vienna and then Paris for business, but they moved back to the United States shortly after. When she was about 16 her mother died and three years later her father died too, her older brother arranged for them to live in Baltimore.

Between 1893 and 1897 she studied psychology under philosopher William James at Radcliffe College. After, she studied at John Hopkins, but left for Paris before she graduated. She lived with her brother for nine years, as he became an accomplished art collector and critic, and after she lived with Alice B. Toklas. She and her brother were one of the major collectors of experimental painters, and she became friends with many expatriate writers, poets, and artists, such as Ernest Hemingway. She became a very well respected critic of art and literature.

She became friends with many famous painters around Paris, like Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse. Her art collection was considered to be one of the best in the world, and it gained a world wide reputation. In 1914 her older brother moved to Italy, and as a result their collection was split up. After their collection was split, she continued to collect, mostly John Gris’ and Pablo Picasso’s cubist work.

Gertrude Stein is also a famous writer, but her books never did as well as other writers of the “Lost Generation”, a term she gave to the people that came of age during the First World War. Her first best-seller, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, was her autobiography. She admitted that writing her autobiography was a way to make money, and some of her friends thought it was too commercial or inaccurate, and Ernest Hemingway called it a “damned pitiful book.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gertrude_Stein

http://writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/stein-bio.html