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111 STEIN, Gertrude. Portrait photograph inscribed to photographer George Platt Lynes. [c.1927] “A large hat is tall and me and all custard whole” A striking photograph of Gertrude Stein, indicative of her life in the late 1920s, inscribed by her to a friend and mentee: “To George on his birthday from Gertrude Stein”. The recipient, George Platt Lynes (1907–1955), was a master of 20th-century photography. Lynes met Stein while in Paris in 1925, aged just 18, and the two began a decades-long friendship and correspondence. This is a characteristically direct image of Stein, in a top hat typical of her style, her gaze intent on the photographer. The intimate photo was taken at a picnic at Vieu, in Valromey, near Stein’s favourite holiday spot of Aix-les-Bains, with her partner, Alice Toklas, partially out of shot, and two men not pictured: the American pianist Allen Tanner, and his partner, the artist Pavel Tchelitchew. The photo was likely taken in the summer of 1926, and can be dated by Stein’s swept-up hairstyle, predating her distinctive close-cropped “Julius Caesar” haircut, which Toklas cut later that year. Further photos from the trip are held at the Beinecke Library. Lynes first visited France in 1925, to study at the Auteuil Day School and the Institut du Panthéon. While there he was welcomed into Stein’s literary coterie. There Lynes also met Tchelitchew and Tanner, the latter of whom he fell for. Lynes returned to America in late February 1926, and by 17 April
had successfully published Stein’s Descriptions of Literature . He continued to write to Stein all summer and autumn, hoping especially to hear from Tanner, “say a word for me. Perhaps, adoring you as he does, he will have to write oftener”. Stein wrote to Lynes in autumn 1926 that she had done a word portrait of Allen in the summer (likely around the time this photo was taken), and recently another of Pavel. In early 1927 Lynes decided to study a short course in business at Columbia, with plans to open a bookshop in the autumn. He requested a portrait of Stein, inspired by Sylvia Beach’s practice of displaying portraits in Shakespeare & Co. This present photograph is likely the one sent in response, intended as a gift for his birthday on 15 April. Stein perhaps thought it fitting to send Lynes a photo from a day spent with the two men he enquired after most frequently in his letters, and one that encapsulated so well the style with which she would become best known. Provenance: From Lynes to his studio assistant Wilbur Pippin; thence presented to Sewell Silliman and his partner James McNair, subsequently from McNair’s estate. Signed photographs of Stein are uncommon, with fewer than ten traced at auction, the majority of those portrait sittings as opposed to this intimate and casual image. Original silver gelatin print (image size 83 x 133 mm). In cream mount (280 x 356 mm). Gently creased, short closed tear to head of left edge, slight tape residue from prior mounting to top edge, spotting to centre of image; notably well-preserved. £3,500 [154805]
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