What's App in Paris? The Stein Collection at the Grand Palais

It was a(nother) dark and rainy Saturday night in Paris. The Uber-Mensch, Lucky-one-and-only (Loo) and I were heading up to Montmartre for the Fêtes des Vendanges, an annual community event, dating to 1934, that celebrates the wine and gastronomic culture of Paris. It is the only fête of its kind in the City of Light, due perhaps to the fact that Montmartre is home to the only working vineyards left in Paris. To us, the celebration has the look and feel of a Brooklyn block party. Even 15 year-old Loo was psyched to go, although it meant spending an evening with the ‘rents. But the weather had been ominous all day, and just as we were about to leave the skies opened up.

No way were we staying in. But neither did we want to risk the trip to Montmartre only to stand in the rain.

“How late does the Grand Palais stay open on a Saturday,” I asked the U-M whose blackberry is never far from reach. And after a somewhat grueling hunt through the Grand Palais’ clumsy website we determined it was open until 10:00pm.

Perfect. Course changed. We were off to view the Stein collection.

Curated in collaboration with France’s Reseau des Monuments Nationaux, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, Matisse, Cézanne, Picasso... L'aventure des Stein opened at the Grand Palais on 5 October 2011. The exhibition features the collection of Gertrude Stein and her brothers, Leo and Michael, San Franciscans who immigrated to Paris in the early years of the 20th century where they would stake their claim as legendary patrons of avant-garde art.

The show brings together 200 paintings by the modern masters, in particular Matisse, Picasso and Cezanne, all owned at some point by one of the Steins and organized according each siblings’ preferences.

Leo Stein, an art critic, is said to have started it all when he “discovered” Matisse, buying La Femme au Chapeau with Gertrude’s help in 1905. That year the same painting shocked the art world at the Salon d’automne where the term “Fauvism” (wild beasts) was coined to describe a crop of new painters dedicated to using color in its purest form. It was older brother Michael and his wife, Sarah, however, who would became life-long patrons of Matisse’s work, while little sister, Gertrude, would befriend and support Picasso from his early blue period through the invention of cubism (which Leo detested). Indeed, it was the technique of cubism – fracturing a subject and reassembling it from a single to multiple viewpoints – that Gertrude would emulate in her later writings.      

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On this dark and rainy Saturday night in Paris, we had the Grand Palais to ourselves. We wandered from room to room, sometimes retracing our steps. We sat on the centralized benches and stared with no worry of others blocking our view. We gazed leisurely from one modern masterpiece to another, marveling at the richness of one of history’s most impressive personal art collections. We gained a sense of what it might have been like to live at 27 rue de Fleurus, or frequent the regular salons that took place there, surrounded by these fantastic, wild images climbing the walls.

The exhibition offers an app, for 2.99Es. I did not hesitate to purchase and download it direct to my iPhone. Unfortunately, it did not work. So the nice folks at the Grand Palais gave me free use of the audio-guide instead.

It was your basic museum audio-guide: plug in the number attached to the picture et voila! you get commentary in the language of your choice pertaining to the image in question.

Mysteriously, the app is now working. So I can attest that it works exactly the same way as the audio-guide with the added benefit of displaying the image on my device screen. This makes it possible to go through the exhibit again at home, which I’ve just done.

The only language option in the app, however, appears to be French – great for me, both to boost my language skills as well as my appreciate of art, but not good for the non-francophone visitor. So be warned: I don’t recall the French language limitation being stated on the app advertisement at the museum.

Recommendations:

• The Stein Collection runs through 16 January 2012. Don’t miss it if you love 20th century modern art;
• Go soon before the reviews hit the streets and the crowds descend. We didn’t even have to wait in line to buy tickets, a rarity at Grand Palais exhibits!
• If you carry an iPhone and understand French, buy the app. Though it’s basic and therefore overpriced for what it is, it is still cheaper than buying the audio-guide and it lives in the phone so can be reviewed again and again, post-visit.

Images:

Exibition poster, courtesy of the Grand Palais website.

Woman with a Hat by Henri Matisse, 1905. Oil on canvas, 31 1/4 x 23 1/2 in. (79.4 x 59.7 cm) San Francisco Museum of Art, Bequest of Elise S. Haas, ©Succession H. Matisse, Paris / Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York, coutesy of Wikimedia Common.s