A (Miniature) Room of One's Own: More books, Picasso chairs, Beineke collection,

More progress this week. Read the terrific biography Gertrude and Alice by Linda Simon. Much more detailed than Souhami, and less drawn from their own autobiographies. In Simon I found some delights, including a description of the atelier by Francis Rose who first visited the studio about 1930: "...facing us was a large lock-up studio which might have been a garage or workshop with a small residence attached. The studio was higher than it was wide; the furniture was heavy and Renaissance; a great sofa and armchairs stuffed with horsehair filled the middle; two tiny Louis XV chairs stood near-by; they were covered with jewel-like petit-point tapestry, one in bright yellow, black, and red, the other in green and white. These were the work of Alice B. Toklas from designs Picasso had painted on canvas... On entering the studio for the first time, I immediately noticed an ostrich egg made into a lamp with a shade of negro raffia-work, and next to it an egg-cup and spoon cast in lead, painted with dots. It was the first sculpture collage, made by Picasso"(Rose cited in Simon 1977, 143). Rose also lists his paintings which hung in the atelier, and which I have added to my catalog.

Here is the account of the petit-point chairs:

"When Picasso came by one day, Gertrude brought up the subject of Alice's needlework. "Alice wants to make a tapestry of that little picture," she said pointing to one of his paintings, "and I said i would trace it for her." Picasso, of course, would have no one tamper with his work. "...If it is done by anybody...it will be done by me," he replied. quickly, Gertrude placed a piece of tapestry in front of him. "well go at it". "(ABT, 175 in Simon 144). And Lo and Behold, I found the chairs, which were donated by Alice to Yale after Gertrude's death. Below are the photos from the Beineke Library website.

Petit Point Chairs, Conception
and Work by Alice Toklas

Design by Pablo Picasso
(Beineke Library,
Yale University)

Even better than Simon is Linda Wagner-Martin's "Favored Strangers" (1995), which is both more detailed and more balanced than earlier biographies. She conveys the depth and range of their characters: these women drove to Paris to collect their paintings during. the occupation, found they couldn't transport them, took two, including the portrait of Mme Cezanne, drove back to Bilignin, and subsequently into Switzerland in the dead of night to sell it. Despite the fact that this painting was central to Gertrude's development of her style of writing, they retained enough of a sense of humor to quip that they ate Mme Cezanne during the war. Quite a feat for a couple of women in their late sixties.

Other nuggets: Alice collected miniature furniture! And her favorite colour was blue which is great, given the colour scheme I have used.