Dix portraits
*Dix portraits* is an exceptional modernist portrait book in which Gertrude Stein brings together her English prose portraits with French translations by Georges Hugnet and Virgil Thomson. Published in 1930 by Éditions de La Montagne, with a preface by Pierre de Massot, the edition forms a compact cartography of Stein’s Parisian circle. The ten illustrations by Picasso, Tchelitchew, Bérard, Tonny and Berman make the volume a collective portrait of a milieu rather than a merely illustrated collection. This copy is no. 91, belonging to the illustrated series on vélin d’Arches, and is signed on the justification by Gertrude Stein, Georges Hugnet and Virgil Thomson, with a fourth unidentified inscription or paraph. Edward Wasserman’s bookplate adds a later collector’s provenance. The later orange binding gives the book an almost object-like presence, while its contents preserve a subtle network of friendship, modernism and portraiture. This copy is additionally enriched with a drawing in blue ink and wash on the page accompanying the portrait of Christian Bérard, apparently signed ‘Christian Bérard’. The attribution to Bérard rests on style, colour and signature and remains subject to independent confirmation. This addition is described separately from the edition’s ten illustrations.
Quantity
Stein, Gertrude
Picasso, Pablo
Tchelitchew, Pavel
Bérard, Christian
Tonny, Kristians
Berman, Eugene
Dix portraits
1930 | Paris | Éditions de La Montagne
Signed illustrated copy no. 91 on vélin d’Arches, with Edward Wasserman’s bookplate and a later orange binding. The drawing attributed to Christian Bérard gives this copy particular research and collecting interest; the attribution remains subject to independent confirmation.
*Dix portraits* is an exceptional modernist portrait book in which Gertrude Stein brings together her English prose portraits with French translations by Georges Hugnet and Virgil Thomson. Published in 1930 by Éditions de La Montagne, with a preface by Pierre de Massot, the edition forms a compact cartography of Stein’s Parisian circle. The ten illustrations by Picasso, Tchelitchew, Bérard, Tonny and Berman make the volume a collective portrait of a milieu rather than a merely illustrated collection. This copy is no. 91, belonging to the illustrated series on vélin d’Arches, and is signed on the justification by Gertrude Stein, Georges Hugnet and Virgil Thomson, with a fourth unidentified inscription or paraph. Edward Wasserman’s bookplate adds a later collector’s provenance. The later orange binding gives the book an almost object-like presence, while its contents preserve a subtle network of friendship, modernism and portraiture.
This copy is additionally enriched with a drawing in blue ink and wash on the page accompanying the portrait of Christian Bérard, apparently signed ‘Christian Bérard’. The attribution to Bérard rests on style, colour and signature and remains subject to independent confirmation. This addition is described separately from the edition’s ten illustrations.
€2,100
Condition Report:
In-Depth Study
References & Bibliography
Format
In-8 (Octavo) approx. 20 × 26 cm
Edition Particulars
Copy no. 91, belonging to the illustrated series on vélin d’Arches, with 10 illustrations by Picasso, Tchelitchew, Bérard, Tonny and Berman; signed by Gertrude Stein, Georges Hugnet and Virgil Thomson, with a fourth unidentified inscription/paraph and Edward Wasserman bookplate.
This copy is additionally enriched with a drawing in blue ink and wash on the page accompanying the portrait of Christian Bérard, apparently signed ‘Christian Bérard’. The attribution to Bérard rests on style, colour and signature and remains subject to independent confirmation. This addition is described separately from the edition’s ten illustrations.
Print Run
65
Copy Number
No. 91
Paper
vélin d’Arches
Inscription
Signed by the Author
Product DETAIL
The volume contains ten prose portraits written by Gertrude Stein between 1913 and 1929. Their subjects belong to her artistic and literary milieu, including Picasso, Apollinaire, Erik Satie, Pavel Tchelitchew, Virgil Thomson, Christian Bérard, Bernard Faÿ, Kristians Tonny, Georges Hugnet and Eugene Berman. Stein does not describe them psychologically in the conventional sense, but through rhythm, repetition, voice, proximity and small shifts of language. The French translation makes this often resistant English portraiture available to a French readership, while the images recast the sitters in a visual register. The book therefore has no linear plot, but a sequence of encounters in which persons are built through text and image. Its central question is how a modern portrait can function when likeness matters less than presence, tone and relation. The illustrations strengthen that structure by introducing different hands and artistic temperaments from Stein’s circle.
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