Modernist author Gertrude Stein moved to Paris in , embarking on a literary career that produced Tender Buttons and Three Lives , as well as work dealing with homosexual themes.
Stein was also a prolific art collector and the host of a salon that included expatriate writers Ernest Hemingway, Sherwood Anderson and Ezra Pound. Gertrude Stein was born on February 3, , in Allegheny, Pennsylvania. Stein was an imaginative, influential writer in the 20th century. The daughter of a wealthy merchant, she spent her early years in Europe with her family.
The Steins later settled in Oakland, California. While at the college, Stein studied psychology under William James and would remain greatly influenced by his ideas.
She went on to study medicine at the prestigious Johns Hopkins Medical School. In , Stein moved to Paris, France, to be with her brother, Leo, where they began collecting Post-Impressionist paintings, thereby helping several leading artists such as Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso. She and Leo established a famous literary and artistic salon at 27 rue de Fleurus. Leo moved to Florence, Italy, in , taking many of the paintings with him.
Stein remained in Paris with her assistant Alice B. Toklas, who she met in Toklas and Stein would become lifelong companions.
