Pablo Picasso, Portrait of Gertrude Stein, 1906; Collection Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; © Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
As American expatriates in bohemian Paris when the 20th century was young, Gertrude Stein and her family were among the first to recognize the talents of avant-garde painters like Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso. SFMOMA’s major summer exhibition The Steins Collect: Matisse, Picasso, and the Parisian Avant-Garde tells the stories behind the famous canvases, offering a rare, in-depth encounter with the artworks and the extraordinary people who facilitated the birth of modern art. In conjunction with the exhibition (on view from May 21 through September 6, 2011), the museum will present the following public programs and events. Tickets are available at the museum (no surcharge) or through sfmoma.org/tickets (surcharge applies) unless otherwise noted.
OPENING PROGRAM
Curator Panel Discussion
Janet Bishop, curator of painting and sculpture, SFMOMA; Cécile Debray, curator of historical collections, Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou, Paris; Rebecca Rabinow, associate curator of 19th-century, modern, and contemporary art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art; Gary Tinterow, Engelhard Chairman, Department of 19th-Century, Modern, and Contemporary Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Thursday, May 19, 7 p.m. • Phyllis Wattis Theater, SFMOMA
Tickets: $10 general; $7 SFMOMA members, students, and seniors; does not include entry to The Steins Collect.
Reassembling long-dispersed historical collections that had tremendous impacts on the trajectory of modern art, The Steins Collect presents a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to experience and understand a central moment in the history of art. This panel explores the exhibition’s intertwining stories with the four curators who collaborated for four years to produce it.
PHYLLIS WATTIS DISTINGUISHED LECTURE
Wayne Koestenbaum, cultural critic and distinguished professor of English, City University of New York
Thursday, June 2, 7 p.m. • Phyllis Wattis Theater, SFMOMA
Tickets: $10 general; $7 SFMOMA members, students, and seniors; does not include entry to The Steins Collect.
Essayist, cultural critic, and poet Koestenbaum is one of the most energetic and original writers working today. With books like The Queen’s Throat: Opera, Homosexuality and the Mystery of Desire and Hotel Theory, he has made an unparalleled contribution to the writing of queer cultural history. Gertrude Stein was a key figure in that history as well as in the development of modern art in early 20th-century Paris. For this year’s Phyllis Wattis Distinguished Lecture, SFMOMA has commissioned Koestenbaum to write a new piece related to The Steins Collect; his topic: painting and writing.
SPECIAL EVENT
Living Room
Margaret Tedesco, artist, publisher, and curator; additional participants to be announced.
Saturday, June 4, 11:30 a.m.–6 p.m.• The Schwab Room, SFMOMA
Free and open to the public; does not include entry to The Steins Collect.
The Stein family’s Saturday salons in their Paris apartments were the crucible of the avant-garde art and writing of the period. In keeping with the spirit of those informal gatherings, this event transforms the museum’s free public spaces into a “living room,” complete with a conversation pit, hosted by a range of Bay Area visual and literary artists and organized by Tedesco. At the same time, poets from around the Bay will perform a daylong reading of selections from Gertrude Stein’s epic The Making of Americans in the museum’s Haas Atrium.
PANEL DISCUSSION
Queer Culture and Artists’ Circles
Tammy Rae Carland, artist; Jonathan Katz, chair, Visual Studies Doctoral Program, SUNY, Buffalo; Wayne Koestenbaum, cultural critic and distinguished professor of English, City University of New York
Saturday, June 4, 4:30 p.m. • Phyllis Wattis Theater, SFMOMA
Free and open to the public; does not include entry to The Steins Collect.
Carland, Katz, and Koestenbaum discuss how artistic circles form and transform visual and literary artistic practices, and the place of such circles in queer histories of modern and contemporary culture. This panel coincides with our program Living Room, which explores the function of the salon in supporting marginal or emerging ideas and practices. Koestenbaum is SFMOMA’s 2010 Phyllis Wattis distinguished lecturer. Katz curated Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture and is the author of The Homosexualization of American Art: Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg and the Collective Closet. Carland is the former manager of Mr. Lady Records and Videos, an independent producer and distributor of queer and feminist music and video.
FREE TUESDAY PROGRAM
Gertrude Stein Live!
Frank Smigiel, associate curator of public programs, SFMOMA
Tuesday, June 7, noon • Phyllis Wattis Theater, SFMOMA
Museum and program admission are free; does not include entry to The Steins Collect
Smigiel explores the live iterations of Gertrude Stein’s work, from poetry readings to performances, as he prepares for SFMOMA’s August production of her Four Saints in Three Acts (see below for more information). This opera, a landmark collaboration with the composer Virgil Thomson, is re-presented through the creative lens of chamber opera experimentalists Ensemble Parallèle, composer Luciano Chessa, and video/performance artist Kalup Linzy. Additional guests to be announced.
FILM SERIES
Stein High/Stein Low
Thursdays, June 9, 16, 23, and 30, 7 p.m. • Phyllis Wattis Theater, SFMOMA
Each screening: $5 general; free for SFMOMA members or with museum admission (requires a free ticket, which can be picked up in the Haas Atrium); does not include entry to The Steins Collect
Our popular “High/Low” film series returns with a cinematic array that taps into the legacy of iconic cultural luminary Gertrude Stein. Narrative and documentary selections explore her cultural milieu, expatriate lifestyle, and personal life (Stein’s longtime partnership with Alice Toklas is evoked in two imaginative portrayals of alternative ways of living and loving).
The Sun Also Rises
Henry King, 1957, 130 min., 35mm
Thursday, June 9, 7 p.m.
King’s 1957 interpretation of Ernest Hemingway’s novel illuminates the condition and characteristics of post-World War I expatriates in Paris, dubbed “The Lost Generation” by Hemingway’s friend, mentor, and patron Gertrude Stein. The contingent of American writers and artists included F. Scott Fitzgerald, T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, and many others, with Stein at the creative helm. This film follows Hemingway’s narrator Jake Barnes through romantic dalliances, existential digressions, and moments of both inspiration and despair to emerge with a profound understanding of the recurrent themes of avant-garde life and literature. Print courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox Archives.
The Moderns
Alan Rudolph, 1988, 126 min., 35mm
Thursday, June 16, 7 p.m.
The Moderns follows Nick Hart, a struggling painter at the center of the expatriate culture of 1920s Paris, as he navigates the Left Bank milieu. From cafe conversations to sordid love intrigue, sketching caricatures to forging paintings, Hart comes in contact with not only Gertrude Stein and others in her salon circle but also a dangerous businessman, the husband of one of his paramours. Print courtesy of MGM.
I Love You, Alice B. Toklas!
Hy Averback, 1968, 92 min., video
Thursday, June 23, 7 p.m.
Averback’s 1968 film stars Peter Sellers as Harold Fine, an uptight lawyer who is uninspired with approaching middle age and his upcoming nuptials. Harold’s life is changed forever when he falls in love with Nancy, a free-spirited young hippie who turns him on with a “groovy” brownie recipe taken out of Alice B. Toklas’s infamous cookbook.
The Virgin Machine
Monika Treut, 1988, 84 min., 16mm
Thursday, June 30, 7 p.m.
With a nod to The Wizard of Oz, German journalist Dorothee (Ina Blum) writes about the perils of finding love. Her research takes her from Germany deep into San Francisco’s lesbian culture, where she meets Ramona (Shelly Mars). From here Dorothee finds herself on a romantic and sensual journey of self-awareness. Print courtesy of First Run Features.
TEACHER INSTITUTE
The Steins Collect: Matisse, Picasso, and the Parisian Avant-Garde
Saturday, June 11, 9:30 a.m.–1 p.m. • Koret Visitor Education Center, SFMOMA
$40 general; $32 SFMOMA members. To register, visit sfmoma.org/teachers.
These half-day professional development workshops are designed to help high school teachers incorporate modern and contemporary art into the classroom curriculum, but educators of all levels are welcome to attend. At this institute focused on The Steins Collect, participants will consider how leading artists of early 20th-century Paris, such as Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso, represented the vibrant cultural life of the day in their work. The workshop includes a private gallery tour, hands-on activities, and an education packet.
ONE ON ONE CURATOR TALKS
Thursdays, June 2, 9, 16, 23, and 30, 6:30 p.m. • Fourth-floor galleries, SFMOMA
Free with admission to The Steins Collect
Each Thursday evening, one of SFMOMA’s curators or specialists shares a perspective on a single artist or artwork on view. Talks in June focus on works in The Steins Collect and last 20 minutes.
June 2: Jared Ledesma, project research assistant, on Henri Matisse’s Boy with a Butterfly Net
June 9: Suzanne Stein, community producer, on Marie Laurencin’s Apollinaire et ses amis…
June 16: Janet Bishop, curator of painting and sculpture, on Matisse’s portraits of Sarah and
Michael Stein
June 23: Carrie Pilto; assistant curator of painting and sculpture, on Le Corbusier’s Villa Stein-de Monzie
June 30: Kate Mendillo, curatorial project manager, on Henri Matisse’s Blue Nude: Memory of Biskra
FAMILY SUNDAYS
What’s the STORY?
Sundays, July 3, 10, 24, and 31; August 7, 14, 21, and 28; 11 a.m.–3 p.m. • Galleries and Koret Visitor Education Center, SFMOMA
Museum and program admission are always free for children under 12. General admission is required for adult
companions.
Can a picture tell a story or a poem paint a picture? What magic happens when you look at a book? Discover the art of the story in what you read, write, say, and see. Don’t miss special book readings featuring a different author every week. Word up! Family programs are designed for families with children ages 4 to 11.
FREE TUESDAY PROGRAM
Le Corbusier’s Villa Stein-de Monzie: A New Standard for Modern Luxury
Carrie Pilto, project assistant curator, SFMOMA
Tuesday, July 5, noon • Phyllis Wattis Theater, SFMOMA
Museum and program admission are free; does not include entry to The Steins Collect.
Pilto, assistant curator for The Steins Collect, discusses how Sarah and Michael Stein’s 1926 commission of a home by now-legendary architect Le Corbusier ushered in a new era of modern luxury. She addresses the villa’s design as a purist work of art as well as how the Steins inhabited their home and played a significant role in advancing the cause of modern architecture. A Q&A follows the presentation.
POP-UP POETS
Thursdays in July and August; 6:30 p.m. • Meet in SFMOMA’s Haas Atrium before moving into the galleries.
Free with admission to The Steins Collect
Inspired by The Steins Collect, this series of readings honors poet Gertrude Stein and her relationships with the visual artists of her day. Each Thursday evening, one of the Bay Area’s leading contemporary poets gives a reading, performance, or talk on a single artist or artwork on view. Readings last 20 minutes and are organized by Small Press Traffic.
July 7: Ariel Goldberg on Robert Gober’s Newspaper
July 14: Bhanu Kapil on Jim Goldberg’s Home of a Boy Who Died Trying to Get to Europe, Senegal
July 21: Douglas Kearney on Wifredo Lam’s The Oracle and the Green Bird
July 28: Arnold Kemp on Mary Heilmann’s Fire and Ice Remix
August 4: Amber di Pietra on IwamotoScott Architecture’s Jellyfish House
August 11: Evan Kennedy on Claude Cahun’s Untitled (Self-Portrait)
August 18: Brent Cunningham on Hanne Darboven’s 51 Drawings
August 25: Yedda Morrison on Nancy Holt and Robert Smithson’s Swamp
TEACHER INSTITUTE
Connecting Collections
Monday–Thursday, July 11–14, 9:30 a.m.–3:30 p.m. • SFMOMA, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, and the Asian Art Museum
Price to be determined. To register, visit sfmoma.org/teachers.
This four-day program for teachers is a collaboration between SFMOMA, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, and the Asian Art Museum. Working with art from each collection, educators develop techniques for integrating the study of visual art into their classrooms. Designed for high school teachers, this workshop includes private gallery tours, hands-on activities, and an education packet.
LECTURE SERIES
Matisse, Picasso, and Stein
Thursdays, July 14, 21, and 28; August 4 and 11; 7 p.m. • Koret Visitor Education Center, SFMOMA
July 14: $20; includes admission to The Steins Collect. All other dates: $15 general; $10 SFMOMA members, students, and seniors; does not include admission to The Steins Collect.
The Steins Collect is a guide to the personal and artistic relationships that formed the crucible of modern art. This series of five talks by curators and historians explores those relationships and describes how and why the story of modern art owes so much to that moment in history. It looks especially at the work of Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, and Gertrude Stein, three of the most adventurous artists of the period. Lecturers include Janet Bishop, curator of painting and sculpture at SFMOMA; Dara Solomon, curator at the Contemporary Jewish Museum; and Renate Stendhal, editor of Gertrude Stein in Words and Pictures.
FILM SERIES
Opera on Film
Thursdays, July 14 and 21; August 4 and 25; 7 p.m. • Phyllis Wattis Theater, SFMOMA
Each screening: $5 general; free for SFMOMA members or with museum admission (requires a free ticket, which can be picked up in the Haas Atrium); does not include entry to The Steins Collect.
In conjunction with the new production of Virgil Thomson and Gertrude Stein’s opera Four Saints in Three Acts, SFMOMA presents films that take opera as an influence on either their form or subject matter, exploring the range of the opera/film encounter. Though they were originally disparate art forms, opera’s emotional rigor lends itself to cinematic storytelling, while film’s visual possibilities enrich the spectacle of opera.
The Magic Flute
William Kentridge, 2005, 180 min., video
Thursday, July 14, 7 p.m.
For South African artist William Kentridge, opera is a natural pairing with the video and charcoal work he is best known for. In this 2005 production of Mozart’s The Magic Flute, Kentridge reframes the opera’s original themes of Enlightenment philosophy through the bitter legacy of colonialism. In German with electronic libretto in Italian, English, and German (subtitles).
Diva
Jean-Jacques Beineix, 1981, 117 min., 35mm
Thursday, July 21, 7 p.m.
In this film, a young postman with a passion for opera makes a bootleg of his favorite opera diva, a
celebrated African American soprano who refuses to make recordings. Amidst a burgeoning relationship
with the singer, our hero is chased through Paris by Taiwanese music pirates and evil henchman seeking
an altogether different recording in his possession. This slick thriller ushered in the 1980s Cinéma du Look movement. In French with English subtitles.Print courtesy of Rialto Pictures.
Carmen Jones
Otto Preminger, 1954, 105 min.
Thursday, August 4, 7 p.m.
Preminger’s Carmen Jones sticks closely to the original score of Georges Bizet’s opera Carmen, though
the cast, lyrics, and story are modernized in surprising ways: the events are set in World War II America
and the entire cast is African American. Don Jose becomes an all-American GI Joe, played by Harry
Belafonte, and Carmen becomes parachute factory worker Carmen Jones, a role that won Dorothy
Dandridge a Best Actress Oscar nomination. Print courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox Archives.
Tommy
Ken Russell, 1974, 100 min., 35mm
Thursday, August 25, 7 p.m.
Its conceit is familiar by now: a deaf, dumb, and blind kid plays a mean pinball. Yet Russell’s phantasmagoric realization of The Who’s rock opera album is wholly unexpected. Ann-Margaret rolls around in baked beans (garnering an Academy Award nomination); Elton John, as the reigning Pinball Wizard, plays a piano built into a 10-foot tall pinball machine; and Tina Turner gives an electrifying performance as the Acid Queen who tries to heal Tommy with a double dose of sex and LSD. Print courtesy of SonyPictures Repertory.
GOOGLE FREE FAMILY DAY
What’s the STORY?
Sundays, July 17, 11 a.m.–4 p.m. • SFMOMA
Museum and program admission are free for families with children under 12.
Welcome to our free open house for families! Can a picture tell a story or a poem paint a picture? What magic happens when you look at a book? Discover the art of the story in what you read, write, say, and see. Word up! Family programs are designed for families with children ages 4 to 11.
FREE TUESDAY PROGRAM
Lyn Hejinian on Gertrude Stein
Lyn Hejinian, poet and professor of English, UC Berkeley
Tuesday, August 2, noon • Phyllis Wattis Theater, SFMOMA
Museum and program admission are free; does not include entry to The Steins Collect.
A poet and a professor of poetics, Hejinian has been influenced by and has researched the work of Gertrude Stein. In her essay “Two Stein Talks,” for example, she delves into realism and the perception of reality in Stein’s work. In this Free Tuesday lecture, Hejinian talks about Stein and her individualized prose.
LIVE ART
Steven Watson Prepares for Saints
Steven Watson, cultural historian; special guests to be announced
Thursday, August 11, 7 p.m. • Phyllis Wattis Theater, SFMOMA
Tickets: $10 general; $7 SFMOMA members, students, and seniors; does not include entry to The Steins Collect.
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 this production.
LIVE ART—OPERA PERFORMANCE
FourSaints in Three Acts: An Opera Installation
Thursday, August 18, 8 p.m. (preview); Friday and Saturday, August 19 and 20, 8 p.m.;
Sunday, August 21, 2 p.m. • Novellus Theater, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 700 Howard St., San Francisco
Tickets: $15–$85 general (reserved seating); $10–$75 SFMOMA, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and Contemporary Jewish Museum members; students; and seniors. For tickets, visit ybca.org/steinopera or call 415.978.2787. Tickets go on sale June 1.
SFMOMA, in association with Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, presents a new production of Virgil Thomson and Gertrude Stein’s opera, Four Saints in Three Acts, an experimental milestone in twentieth-century music as well as a Broadway hit in 1934. Nodding to the original, the new production presents a rich artistic collaboration among the chamber opera organization Ensemble Parallele (concept design by Brian Staufenbiel, conducted by Nicole Paiement), composer Luciano Chessa, and video and performance artist Kalup Linzy.
CAFFÈ MUSEO SPECIAL MENU
Daily (except Wednesdays) from May 21 to September 6, 2011
Price varies
SFMOMA’s Caffè Museo celebrates The Steins Collect with a variety of French dishes selected from The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook. Written in 1954 by Gertrude Stein’s partner and muse, Alice B. Toklas, the volume is filled with memories and recipes from meals the two shared in Paris with such famous acquaintances as Matisse, Picasso, and Hemingway. Alas, Caffè Museo’s menu will not include Toklas’s infamous recipe for Hashish Fudge, but it will feature French onion soup, chicken a la dijonaise, savory crepes, petrale sole, bouillabaisse, and a “Picasso palette” dessert creation.
DAILY KORET CENTER FILM SCREENING
Paris Was a Woman
Greta Schiller, 1995, 75 min.
Beginning May 21
Daily (except Wednesdays), 4 p.m. • Koret Visitor Education Center, SFMOMA
Screenings are free with museum admission. Drop-ins welcome.
Schiller’s film is a feminist documentary that looks into the lives of several dynamic and prominent women in Paris between the two world wars. The film uses home movies, paintings, old photographs, literature, music, and interviews to describe the creative community in which these women thrived. Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas are among the women discussed, as well as Gisele Freund, Josephine Baker, Natalie Barney, Sylvia Beach, Adrienne Monnier, and Janet Flanner.
MOBILE TOUR
The Steins Collect: Matisse, Picasso, and the Parisian Avant-Garde
Daily (except Wednesdays) May 21 through September 6
$6 general; $5 SFMOMA members. The deposit of a driver’s license or state ID is required. Pick up in SFMOMA’s Haas Atrium or on the fourth-floor landing.
Who were the Steins, and what was it like to be a part of their salons? Available for rent on hand-held devices, the mobile tour brings the exhibition to life with curatorial commentary and quotes from the Steins and their creative contemporaries in early 20th-century Paris. Look for a special discounted The Steins Collect ticket and mobile tour bundle when you purchase online. Available in English, French, and Spanish. Produced by Earprint Productions in collaboration with SFMOMA and provided by Acoustiguide.
PUBLIC TOURS
The Steins Collect: Matisse, Picasso and the Parisian Avant-Garde
Daily (except Wednesdays) May 21 through September 6, 11:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. • Meet on SFMOMA’s fourth floor.
Free with admission to The Steins Collect
Explore The Steins Collect in greater depth with these free gallery tours led by SFMOMA docents.
YERBA BUENA NEIGHBORHOOD CELEBRATES GERTRUDE STEIN
May 12 to September 6, 2011• SFMOMA, the Contemporary Jewish Museum, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and the Yerba Buena Gardens
Join the Yerba Buena neighborhood this summer in celebration of the life of Gertrude Stein and her influence on modern art, literature, and culture. SFMOMA, the Contemporary Jewish Museum, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and the Yerba Buena Gardens Festival will all host related programming: from art to opera and poetry readings to salons, there’s definitely a there there. For a full list of events and information, visit sfmoma.org/celebratestein.
The Steins Collect: Matisse, Picasso, and the Parisian Avant-Garde is organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Réunion des Musées Nationaux, Paris; and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Presenting support is provided by the Mimi and Peter Haas Fund. Lead corporate support is provided by The Charles Schwab Corporation. Premier support is provided by the Evelyn D. Haas Exhibition Fund and the Koret Foundation. Major support is provided by Martha and Bruce Atwater; Gerson and Barbara Bakar; the Helen Diller Family Foundation, a supporting foundation of the Jewish Community Endowment Fund; the Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund; the Walter & Elise Haas Fund; and The Bernard Osher Foundation. Generous support is provided by the National Endowment for the Arts; Gay-Lynn and Robert Blanding; Jean and James E. Douglas Jr.; Ann and Robert S. Fisher; Gretchen and Howard Leach; Elaine McKeon; Deborah and Kenneth Novack, Thelma and Gilbert Schnitzer, The Schnitzer Novack Foundation; and Lydia and Douglas Shorenstein. Additional support is provided by Dolly and George Chammas, Concepciόn and Irwin Federman, and the French American Cultural Society. This exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities. Major media support is provided by the Bay Area News Group and The Examiner. Generous promotional support is provided by KGO-TV and KQED.