An unusual digital artist.

Mention of the Stein show at SF’s MOMA prompts me to add that a far more interesting show, with insights into Stein’s collecting, writing, sponsorship of artists and friendships with photographer, is to be seen at SF’s Contemporary Jewish Museum.

The size of the show is far more manageable than the overblown offering at MOMA and you come away with a better understanding of the woman and her work. While her writing is pure, undiluted crap, we owe her a debt of thanks for sponsoring so many struggling artists and photographers.

The fact that Stein continues to inspire contemporary artists is seen in the last of the five rooms of the CJM show and one of the pieces on display there is quite startling.

Detail View: “After Picasso,” 2006, by Devorah Sperber, 5,024 spools of thread, stainless steel ball chain
and hanging apparatus, clear acrylic viewing sphere, metal stand (104″-122″ h x 100” w x 60”- 72″d)

Sperver has done nothing less than recreate, on a large scale, Picasso’s famous 1906 portrait of Gertrude Stein. Her choice of pixels is ….5,024 spools of thread! Viewed though the small magnifying glass some feet in front of the spools, the compressed and right-way-round image of Stein is a perfect reproduction of Picasso’s masterpiece.

It’s easy for me to say that anyone could do this. Simply create a look-up table for the colors of each pixel on your computer then order $30,000 worth of spools of thread. Tell your nine year old to assemble it according to your table and there you have it. All you need add is a $5 magnifying lens. And just imagine the image taking to life as your child gradually assembles it!

Simple to say because I didn’t think of it and neither did you. This is a different kind of digital imaging.

You can visit Devorah Sperber’s web site here.

Quite special.

When it came to collecting early twentieth century modern art, none could outdo the Steins. Not only was their appetite voracious, their taste was also excellent. All of this is clearly on display in the show at SF MOMA which presents most of their collections, many of the canvases and sketches now spread all over the world. The fours Steins, author Gertrude and her two brothers and sister-in-law, left America for Paris just as Picasso and Matisse were rewriting the history books of art, and started buying much of these artists’ output around 1905. While the Steins were far from robber baron rich, they could afford to buy for the simple reason that canvases from these masters ran a few hundred francs a pop. Today, Picasso’s portrait of Gertrude would likely run to eight or nine digits, though I very much doubt its owner, the Metropolitan Museum of New York, is a seller.

The show is huge and exceptionally well curated. I’m no great fan of Matisse and Picasso, but confess that seeing the original sketches for ‘Les Demoiselles d’Avignon’ was enthralling. It’s one of the few mistakes Gertrude made – she bought the sketches but passed on the canvas, now largely recognized as being the dividing line between representative and cubist art. Picasso’s portrait of Stein is also really special, though my favorites were Matisse’s ‘The Girl with Green Eyes’, his ‘Woman with Hat’ and the two sloe eyed portraits of Sarah and Michael Stein. There was also an exceptional Picabia portrait of Gertrude, deeply insightful.

SF MOMA was fortunate that Sarah Stein retired in California and gave some of her best works by Matisse to the museum. Mercifully she did not live in Arkansas.

Matisse – The Girl with Green Eyes. SF MOMA collection.

Matisse – Woman with Hat. SF MOMA collection.

It’s amusing to learn about the ridicule critics laded on these works, having done the same to the impressionists not 30 years earlier. That’s what so distinguishes the Steins’ collections. They did not have great wealth, just great taste, and did not need anyone to tell them what to like. When you look at some of the great Robber Baron collectors like Henry Clay Frick (now in his mansion on 5th Ave, NYC – the collection, not the man) and Charles Tyson Yerkes (dissipated by creditors) they were all professionally advised. Someone had to tell them what was good. Figures, I guess.

The exhibition is large, but then so were the Steins’ collections. Half way through you can pop out on MOMA’s balcony and take a breather.

MOMA’s balcony. G1, kit lens.

Strongly recommended, even at $25 to get in. Despite going on a weekday, the place was full, so weekends are likely not much fun. The $250 annual membership option at SF MOMA almost makes sense, as it includes private ‘members only’ viewings of great shows like this. I would think that means fewer people crassly stepping in front of you when you are trying to enjoy a canvas on the wall.

If you want a fine biography of the American expatriate set in early twentieth century Paris, I recommend James Mellow‘s ‘Charmed Circle’. It’s out of print, but mine ran me all of $1 from Alibris.com. Or for more fun, just catch Woody Allen’s latest masterpiece ‘Midnight in Paris‘ where you can join Owen Wilson, transported back in time, to Gertrude’s salon at 27 Rue de Fleurus. A light as air confection, it’s every bit as enjoyable and amusing as the work of the artists the Steins supported.

A street snapper amongst painters.

If you are of the persuasion that Renoir’s confections are nausea-inducing, but one step removed from the modern horrors of Thomas Kinkade, then like me you may find yourself hewing to the astringent vision of Gustave Caillebotte (1848-1894).

As Paris became the city we know, magnificently laid out with wide boulevards and mansard roofs, Caillebotte was there to record the most perfect city in the world. He had no need to paint for a living, having inherited a fortune, but as history has shown time and again, poverty is not a qualification for great painting – or photography. For every impoverished Monet I can show you a wealthy Degas. For every Doisneau struggling to make the grocery bill, there’s a Cartier-Bresson enjoying his balcony view of the Tuileries.

And both Degas and Caillebotte were very much infused with a photographic vision, the street paintings of both replete with photographic framing and decisive moments all over the place, long before HC-B saw the light of day. Caillebotte’s best known canvas is his ‘photograph’ of a rainy day in Paris in 1877:

The passerby on the right is cut off by the frame and the horse drawn carriage largely obscured at the left. Caillebotte loved the vision photography made possible but lacked access to gear with the technological prowess required for snapshots. The perspective in the painting is very much at the wide angle end of the spectrum – he was seeing through a 21mm lens.

Nor was Caillebotte’s technique less than the finest. Look at this magnificent use of backlighting and the rendition of glass worthy of the finest from the Dutch school:

Modern photographic vision thinks nothing of compositional techniques which seemed so shocking back then. The reality is that we have all learned from the French street painting masters.

In San Francisco. G1, kit lens at 18mm, 1/2500, f/5, ISO 320.

In San Francisco. G1, kit lens @ 18mm, 1/1600, f/5, ISO 320.