Gertrude Stein: A Rose Is A Rose Is A Rose

Nahmad Projects presents Gertrude Stein: a rose is a rose is a rose, a homage to the iconic author’s role as patron, critic, and friend to the creative pioneers who paved the way to modernism in the twentieth century.

By constantly pushing artists to think beyond their limits and providing a site for exchange, Gertrude Stein played a pivotal role in shaping the vibrant cultural life of Paris in the 1910s, ‘20s, and ‘30s. The American expatriate held salons every Saturday night at 27, rue de Fleurus from 1905 to 1938. The salons quickly became a central node of the art world, hosting artists, writers, musicians, and collectors alike to debate the future. She actively promoted and collected emerging painters and sculptors, with an emphasis on two close friends: Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso. Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Guillaume Apollinaire were regular attendees, as were Georges Braque, Marcel Duchamp, Marie Laurencin, Amedeo Modigliani, Francis Picabia, and Henri Rousseau.

Gertrude Stein: a rose is a rose is a rose reunites artists who attended the famous salons and whose work the Steins collected. The exhibition brings together paintings by Pierre Bonnard, Paul Klee, Juan Gris, Henri Matisse, Joan Miró, Francis Picabia, Pablo Picasso, and Kees van Dongen. The title is inspired by one of Stein’s most famous quotations, “Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.” First coined in a poem titled Sacred Emily (1913), the first “Rose” was originally the name of a person.  The phrase developed and came to mean “things are what they are.”