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Cezanne, Picasso, Toklas and Needlepoint
Thursday, June 23, 2011
"Beside the fireplace, beneath Cézanne’s portrait of his wife and
Picasso’s portrait of Gertrude, are two small wood-and-tapestry chairs,
one facing forward, one turned to the side. On the back of the chair on
the right, under Gertrude, is a suggestion of the corner of a picture
frame. The left chair, below Madame Cézanne, bears the image of a hand.
Whose hand?
Several hands made these chairs. First, whoever made the frames, in
Louis XV style, maybe in the 19th century; then Alice Toklas, who worked
the covers in petit point around 1930; and, in between, Pablo Picasso.
Gertrude Stein, playing Alice, told this story in The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas:
That lovely little painting [a 1918 depiction of a guitar, on view in The Steins Collect]
he copied for me many years later on tapestry canvas and I embroidered
it and that was the beginning of my tapestrying. I did not think it
possible to ask him to draw me something to work but when I told
Gertrude Stein she said, alright, I’ll manage. And so one day when he
was at the house she said, Pablo, Alice wants to make a tapestry of that
little picture and I said I would trace it for her. He looked at her
with kindly contempt, if it is done by anybody, he said, it will be done
by me. Well, said Gertrude Stein, producing a piece of tapestry canvas,
go to it, and he did. And I have been making tapestry of his drawings
ever since and they are very successful and go marvellously with old
chairs. I have done two small Louis fifteenth chairs in this way. He is
kind enough now to make me drawings on my canvas and to color them for
me."
To read the entire article go to: http://blog.sfmoma.org/2011/06/alice-toklas-juliet-clark/#.TgOpykME7d4.gmail
SFMOMA Open Space 6/20/2011
Cezanne, Picasso, Toklas and Needlepoint
"Beside the fireplace, beneath Cézanne’s portrait of his wife and Picasso’s portrait of Gertrude, are two small wood-and-tapestry chairs, one facing forward, one turned to the side. On the back of the chair on the right, under Gertrude, is a suggestion of the corner of a picture frame. The left chair, below Madame Cézanne, bears the image of a hand. Whose hand? Several hands made these chairs. First, whoever made the frames, in Louis XV style, maybe in the 19th century; then Alice Toklas, who worked the covers in petit point around 1930; and, in between, Pablo Picasso. Gertrude Stein, playing Alice, told this story in The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas:
That lovely little painting [a 1918 depiction of a guitar, on view in The Steins Collect] he copied for me many years later on tapestry canvas and I embroidered it and that was the beginning of my tapestrying. I did not think it possible to ask him to draw me something to work but when I told Gertrude Stein she said, alright, I’ll manage. And so one day when he was at the house she said, Pablo, Alice wants to make a tapestry of that little picture and I said I would trace it for her. He looked at her with kindly contempt, if it is done by anybody, he said, it will be done by me. Well, said Gertrude Stein, producing a piece of tapestry canvas, go to it, and he did. And I have been making tapestry of his drawings ever since and they are very successful and go marvellously with old chairs. I have done two small Louis fifteenth chairs in this way. He is kind enough now to make me drawings on my canvas and to color them for me."
To read the entire article go to: http://blog.sfmoma.org/2011/06/alice-toklas-juliet-clark/#.TgOpykME7d4.gmail
SFMOMA Open Space 6/20/2011
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