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| Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas |
To [sculpt] a head of Gertrude [Stein] was not enough—there was so much more to her than that. So I did a seated figure of her—a sort of modern Buddha.
I had known her since my first trip to France. She and her brother Leo had two adjoining studios. Doors had been cut through, connecting the two studios; and every Saturday afternoon, the studios were jammed with visitors of various nationalities, either gaping, in earnest discussions, or laughing at the Matisses and the Picassos. Gertrude would stand with her back to the fireplace, her hands clasped behind her back, watching the crowd like a Cambodian caryatid, wearing a smile of patience, looking as if she knew something that nobody else did.
In the other studio, Leo, tall and lean, with a red beard, would talk earnestly about esthetics to anyone who was prepared to listen. In the excitement of his conversation, he generally twisted a button of his listener's waistcoat until it became a straitjacket. One could not get a word in edgewise. All one could do was to wait patiently for him to let go of the button and then make an escape.
Years later I was walking along Fifth Avenue in New York when I ran into Leo Stein. He was no longer bearded, and was wearing a conspicuous hearing-aid. He greeted me effusively: “Remember when I used to talk and talk and never would listen. Now I want to hear and can’t.”
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| Leo and Gertrude Stein (kaput) |
