Gertrude Stein Statue

Author and art collector Gertrude Stein was no stranger to seeing herself portrayed in works of art including famous portraits by Félix Vallotton and Pablo Picasso. Although Stein is most associated with Paris, she was born in Pennsylvania. In the 1930s, when she arrived in New York to begin a speaking tour, she was welcomed by a throng of journalists eager to see the famous literary giant in person. Today, a small, seated Stein—resembling Vallotton’s vision more than Picasso’s—sits behind the main branch of the New York Public Library in Bryant Park.