gertrude stein grew up in oakland from four to 14.lived here at 1640 tenth avenue. little gertrude was an avid reader. by the age five she was reading shakespeare. they found what they were looking for in paris. where new art, new literature, new ideas of how to live. the cafes were full of talk and every chair was filled by a poet, a writer, a painter or a patron of the arts or by someone posing as one or the other. writers wrote in public. painters painted in public, art was in the streets, and radical new books were everywhere. and gertrude stein apartment became one of the centers. she didn't announce that she was a lesbian but sheer she did not have to hide it. pablo picasso painted a picture of her, when she said it didn't look like her. he said don't worry it will. ernest hemmingway was an admirer. you are all a lost generation she told them. another reader dreamed of the avid life in paris. she was alice, when she made a daring trip to paris, she met stein. stein proposed to alice. at older age,gertrude looked less and less li

it was gertrude who continued to bring artists into them. >> reporter: but gertrude stein wanted to be collector. >> she liked collecting, but after awhile, her public image as a patron and collector bothered her. she wanted to be known the same way picasso was known-- for her creative work, not just for her collecting of others. >> reporter: stein thought of herself primarily as a writer, whose work, corn contends, has come back into fashion. >> she was always just a little outside the mainstream until, really, feminism rediscovered her and began to look at her through a completely different lens. >> reporter: in addition to writing several books, including the best selling "autobiography of alice b. toklas," stein composed the libretto for a cutting-edge opera composed by virgil thompson, "four saints in three acts," with an all-black cast, produced in 1934. both museums are showing excerpts. as a writer and as a collector, gertrude was a very strong personality who encouraged her own celebrity, and loved being painted and sculpted. perhaps the most famous portrait is by picasso, whi

gertrude. this is the whole moment, their exhibition on the collections, but at the contemporary jewish museum you ged the inside life. it is filled with photographs, and materials and some of her clothing. you discover who she was as a writer, collector, as somebody who was really part of the birth of modernism in the western world. it is really quite extraordinary. >> for people who vaguely understand some of the vocabulary but don't know, what is modernism. >> it is breaking away from the past. stein love today claim she discovered picasso, and it was a whole new level of art making in the beginning of the 20th century. she was a writer who liked to think about writing very different way than anybody else before her. so in this exhibition at the contemporary jewish museum you get to discover all of these different aspectsover her. and the way in which she still has an extraordinary legacy that continues today that inspires art and writers and poets, and musicians and dancers. she really has

there is one i want to talk about, "seeing gertrude stein." >> gertrude stein is a local woman.he was raised in oakland. she was an extraordinary individual who helped create -- many people call for the mother of modernism. years ago, i was introduced to someone doing research on her. i thought it would be an extraordinary exposition to take her and understand her at all for complexity. that is what we have on view during the summer of 2011. >> it is full of wonderful drawings, paintings, and sculpture. >> there is incredible art on view. we have photographs. we have sculpture. we have a lot of different things. we have a little something made for her by picasso. there are five different ways of looking at her life. it is not in chronological installation. it is looking at how she is portrayed in help artists, painters, and photographers presented her and how she thought about her own style and presentation. many people think she always had short hair. it was not until she was 52 that she cut off all of her hair. the second element is called "domestic stein." alice b. toklas was

last night, we reported that gertrude stein bequeathed a famous picasso painting to the museum of modern was actually the metropolitan museum of art. and to kwame holman for what's on the newshour online. kwame? >> reporter: watch more of jeff's interview with wynton marsalis, and find video of a tornado tracking pod in action. plus, margaret warner has more on the lifting of the state of emergency in bahrain and what it may mean for political dialogue in the country. all that and more is on our web site, newshour.pbs.org. gwen? >> ifill: and that's the newshour for tonight. on thursday, we'll look at the republican presidential field as mitt romney throws his hat into the ring. i'm gwen ifill. >> lehrer: and i'm jim lehrer. we'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening. thank you and good night. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> okay, listen. somebody has got to get serious. >> i think... >> we need renewable energy. >> ...renewable energy is vital to our planet. >> you hear about alternatives, right? wind, solar, algae. >> i think it's got to work on a