Talks
Steven Watson Prepares for Saints
Thursday, Aug 11, 2011
7 p.m.
Participants
Steven Watson, cultural historian
Special guests to be announced
Image: Thérèse Bonney, Virgil Thomson and Gertrude Stein, c. 1929, modern print from original negative, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (1982.111.16 Stein, Gertrude–POR 14)
In his book Prepare for Saints: Gertrude Stein, Virgil Thomson, and the Mainstreaming of American Modernism, Watson details an engaging and lurid narrative of the circle of early 20th-century tastemakers who contributed to the original production of Four Saints in Three Acts. On the occasion of the museum’s restaging of this opera, Watson discusses his book and offers insight into the cultural shift heralded by the production.