"I was and I still am satisfied with my portrait. For me, it is I, and it
is the only reproduction of me which is always I, for me."
During winter-spring 1905-6, Gertrude Stein sat for her portrait through
80-90 sittings in her good friend Picasso's very cold, disorderly studio in Montmartre. In
the spring of 1906, the work came to a standstill. One day, in a fit of frustration,
Picasso painted out the head.
"I can't see you any longer when I look,"
he told her.
Picasso left the painting and went to Spain for the summer. When he returned,
he finished the portrait without Gertrude, giving her a strange, mask-like
face, sharp and angular. Picasso then gave her
the portrait as a present.
She was thrilled.
When friends complained that Gertrude did not look at all like his
painting, Picasso was in the habit of shrugging his shoulders and saying,
"She will."
The portrait of Gertrude Stein by Picasso can now be seen in the
Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC.
