STEIN GERTRUDE: (1874-1946) Lot n° 1334

STEIN GERTRUDE: (1874-1946) American novelist, poet, playwright and art collector who hosted a famous salon in Paris. A good vintage signed and inscribed postcard photograph, the image depicting Stein in a profile head and shoulders pose with an artwork featuring various white doves hanging on the wall in the immediate background. Photograph by Carl Van Vechten and bearing his blind embossed credit stamp to the lower edge. Signed by Stein in dark fountain pen ink to a light area at the head of the image, ´To you all, always, Gertrude Stein´, and dated Paris, France, October 1948 in her hand. Also annotated in Van Vechten´s hand to the verso, ´Gertrude Stein, "Pigeons on the grass, alas!" New York´. Rare in this form. Some light silvering to the lower edges and a small tape stain to a dark area at the base of the image. One minor, small stain to the verso. About VG Carl Van Vechten (1880-1964) American writer and photographer, a patron of the Harlem Renaissance and the literary executor of Gertrude Stein. Pigeons on the grass, alas is a famous aria from Act III of the opera Four Saints in Three Acts (1928) which was composed by Virgil Thomson and set to a libretto by Stein from 1927. The opera was groundbreaking in form and content, and also for its all-black cast.