27 rue de Fleurus was the home of the American writerGertrude Stein and her partnerAlice B. Toklas from 1903 to 1938. It is in the6th arrondissement of Paris on theLeft Bank. It was also the home of Gertrude's brotherLeo Stein for a time in the early 20th century.[1] It was a renowned Saturday evening gathering place foravant-garde artists and writers, notablyPablo Picasso andErnest Hemingway.
Hemingway described Stein'ssalons inA Moveable Feast. Stein's collection ofmodern art was displayed in the apartment, including works byPaul Cézanne,Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso, which she and her brother Leo had bought.[2]
In 1933, Stein publishedThe Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, a memoir of her life in Paris and driving an ambulance duringWorld War I, written in the voice of Toklas, her life partner. The book was a bestseller and Stein went from relative obscurity to become a well known literary figure.[3]
The gatherings in the Stein home "brought together confluences of talent and thinking that would help define modernism in literature and art." Dedicated attendees included Pablo Picasso and his loverFernande Olivier,Georges Braque, Ernest Hemingway,[4]F. Scott Fitzgerald,Guillaume Apollinaire and his loverMarie Laurencin,Sinclair Lewis,James Joyce,Ezra Pound,Thornton Wilder,Juan Gris,Sherwood Anderson,Francis Cyril Rose,René Crevel,Élisabeth de Gramont,Francis Picabia,Claribel Cone,Mildred Aldrich,Carl Van Vechten andHenri Matisse,André Derain,Max Jacob,Henri Rousseau, andJoseph Stella.[5][6]
Saturday evenings had been set as thejour fixe for formal congregation so Stein could work at her writing uninterrupted by impromptu visitors.
Stein herself attributed the beginnings of the Saturday evening salons to Matisse, as
[m]ore and more frequently, people began visiting to see the Matisse paintings—and the Cézannes: "Matisse brought people, everybody brought somebody, and they came at any time and it began to be a nuisance, and it was in this way that Saturday evenings began."[7]
The 2014 opera27 byRicky Ian Gordon andRoyce Vavrek is inspired by events at 27 rue de Fleurus. The place is also depicted in theWoody Allen's movieMidnight In Paris.
Media related to27 rue de Fleurus, Paris at Wikimedia Commons48°50′49″N2°19′45″E / 48.8469°N 2.3293°E /48.8469; 2.3293