Gertrude Stein
<p><b>Gertrude Stein</b> (February 3, 1874 – July 27, 1946) was an American writer of novels, poetry and plays that eschewed the narrative, linear, and temporal conventions of 19th-century literature, and a fervent collector of Modernist art. She was born in West Allegheny (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittsburgh" title="Pittsburgh">Pittsburgh), Pennsylvania</a>, raised in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oakland,_California" title="Oakland, California">Oakland, California</a>, and moved to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris" title="Paris">Paris</a> in 1903, making France her home for the remainder of her life.</p>
<p>
For some forty years, the Stein home at <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/27_rue_de_Fleurus" title="27 rue de Fleurus">27 rue de Fleurus</a> on the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left_Bank" title="Left Bank" class="mw-redirect">Left Bank</a> of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris" title="Paris">Paris</a> was a renowned Saturday evening gathering place for both expatriate American artists and writers and others noteworthy in the world of vanguard arts and letters, most notably <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pablo_Picasso" title="Pablo Picasso">Pablo Picasso</a>. Entrée into the Stein <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salon_%28gathering%29" title="Salon (gathering)">salon</a> was a sought-after validation, and Stein became combination mentor, critic, and guru to those who gathered around her, including <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Hemingway" title="Ernest Hemingway">Ernest Hemingway</a>, who described the salon in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Moveable_Feast" title="A Moveable Feast">A Moveable Feast</a>.</p>