Americans in Paris: Virgil Thomson and Gertrude Stein & Other Expatriates
Bibliography

Writers, musicians, painters, the rich, the famous, adventurers, misfits, expatriate Americans, and the literary cognoscenti from the European capitals, all flocked to Paris between the two World Wars. Paris and the arrondissements of the Left Bank (Rive Gauche) became the unchallenged center of European arts and culture: classical music flourished; new ballet leapt from the theatres; jazz rhythms blared in the clubs; new painting abstracted (Cubism) and enriched the poetry and writing of Dadaism and Surrealism. Paris, like the river Seine, was a swirl of cultural currents.

Why did Paris become such an incomparable center of the arts and jazz, rather than London or New York or Zurich after World War I?

One explanation of the lure of Paris is that given in his memoir (1966) by Virgil Thomson, the American composer, a Kansas City native but a Parisian at heart:

In later years I used to say that I lived in Paris because it reminded me of Kansas City. And Paris can present to anyone, of course, since it contains all possible elements, an image of his origins. In my case, I now learned, not only was Paris to be my new home town, but all France, so little did I feel alien there, was to be like another Missouri -- a cosmopolitan crossroads, frank and friendly and actually not far from the same geographic size.

Gertrude Stein, the American writer and cultural mentor, also saw this as one of the many things that "made Paris and France the natural background of the art and literature of the twentieth century":

Their tradition kept them from changing and yet they naturally saw things as they were, and accepted life as it is, and mixed things up without any reason at the same time. Foreigners were not romantic to them, they were just facts, nothing was sentimental they were just there, and strangely enough it did not make them make the art and literature of the twentieth century but it made them be the inevitable background for it.

And therefore France was so important in the period between 1900 and 1939, it was a period when there really was a serious effort made by humanity to be civilized, the world was round and there really were not left any unknown on it and so everybody decided to be civilized. England had the disadvantage of believing in progress, and progress has really nothing to do with civilization, but France could be civilized without having progress on her mind, she could believe in civilization in and for itself, and so she was the natural background for this period (Gertrude Stein, Paris France, 1940).

Gertrude Stein (1874-1946), who had settled in Paris as early as 1903, became an American legend in her adoptive city and was known as "the Sybil of Montparnasse." Among her most famous books was her "Autobiography" of her long-time partner, Alice B. Toklas. Their apartments at 27 rue de Fleurus and later rue Christine were Parisian landmarks. Stein's American heritage was important to her and an appearance at her literary salon at rue de Fleurus was de rigueur for visiting American writers, artists, and musicians. Among the Americans who made the pilgrimage to rue de Fleurus in the 1920s and 1930s are many familiar names: Ernest Hemingway, Sherwood Anderson, Robert McAlmon, and Virgil Thomson. Some came with letters of introduction from Sylvia Beach, whose bookshop Shakespeare and Company, was a natural meeting place for the English-speaking colony in Paris that included James Joyce, T.S. Eliot, William Carlos Williams, and Ford Madox Ford (of the Transatlantic Review).

In her regular column for the New Yorker magazine, "Letters from Paris" Janet Flanner chronicled under her nom de plume of "Genêt" the bohemian and bourgeois life of the City of Lights. At Stein's apartment one could meet Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, their circle of admirers, family, and models and muses. And the Stein collection of paintings of Henri Matisse, Picasso and others formed a background for the witty, lively discussions and performances at the soirées.

Of the other salons for the numerous American contingent, the best known was that of Natalie Clifford Barney ("the Amazon of Letters"), who held court for the liberated avant-garde, American and European, at 20 rue Jacob. Barney's regular circle included Djuna Barnes, Edward Dahlberg (another Kansas Citian), Mina Loy, Kay Boyle and Peggy Guggenheim. Among her occasional visitors were F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald and Thornton and Dorothy Wilder.

Virgil Thomson (1896-1989) first visited Paris in 1921. After Thomson moved to Paris in 1925, he was a frequent visitor to the Stein-Toklas apartment. His flat at 17 quai Voltaire was also on the Left Bank. His famous collaborations with Gertrude Stein include the operas Four Saints in Three Acts (a theatre season hit in 1934) and the Mother of Us All (1947). Thomson returned to the U.S. in 1940, but continued to visit his adopted city. Stein remained in France until her death in 1946.

On display are selected items from the Special Collections Department and materials from the general collections of the Miller Nichols Library documenting Thomson's life and performances in Paris.

Suggestions for Further Study

This guide is divided into two sections: The Jazz Age in Paris, 1914-1940, the Smithsonian traveling exhibit, and the UMKC Libraries' exhibit on Americans in Paris: Virgil Thomson and Gertrude Stein.

Materials for further reading and listening include books, sound recordings, and videos in the collections of the UMKC Libraries. We hope you will find these selections interesting. If you need assistance locating the materials, please ask for assistance at the Miller Nichols Library Reference Desk (816/235-1534). We can also help you start your own research on this fascinating period.

Books

Carlisle, Clancy. Paris Pilgrims. New York : Carroll & Graf Publishers, 1999. [fiction]

Haight, Mary Ellen Jordan. Walks in Gertrude Stein's Paris. 1st ed. Layton, Utah: G.M. Smith, 1988.

UMK MNL PS3537.T323 Z644 1988

Hemingway, Ernest. A Moveable Feast. New York: Scribner, 1964.

UMK MNL PS3515.E37 Z525

Hobhouse, Janet. Everybody Who Was Anybody: a Biography of Gertrude Stein. 1st American ed. New York: Putnam, 1975.

UMK MNL PS3537.T323 Z647 1975

Souhami, Diana. Gertrude and Alice. Hammersmith, London: Pandora, 1991.

UMK MNL PS3537.T323 Z824 1991

Stein, Gertrude. As Fine As Melanctha, 1914-1930. The Yale Edition of the Unpublished Writings of Gertrude Stein. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1954.

UMK MNL PS3537.T323 A6 v.4

---. Paris France . London: B.T. Batsford, ltd, 1940.

UMK MNL DC715 .S68

---. The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas. First edition. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co, 1933.

UMK MNL PS3537.T323 Z5 1933

Stein, Gertrude, and Museum of Modern Art (New York, N.Y.). Gertrude Stein on Picasso. New York: Liveright, 1970.

UMK MNL ND553.P5 S76

Stein, Gertrude, George Plimpton, Ward Schumaker, and Yolla Bolly Press. Paris France: a Memoir. Covelo, Calif.: Yolla Bolly Press, 2000. Drawings by Ward Schumacher; afterword by George Plimpton. Number 92 of 200 printed.

UMK MNL SpecColl Z DC715 .S68 2000

Thomson, Virgil. Virgil Thomson. 1st ed. New York: A.A. Knopf, 1966.

UMK MNL Music ML410.T452 A3

Wagner-Martin, Linda. Favored Strangers: Gertrude Stein and Her Family. New Brunswick, N.J: Rutgers University Press, 1995.

UMK MNL PS3537.T323 Z87 1995

Return to index

Score

Thomson, Virgil. "Four Saints in Three Acts: an Opera." Gertrude Stein, and Maurice Grosser. 1st ed. New York, London: G. Schirmer, 1948.

UMK MNL Music Score M1503.T484 F6 1948

Recordings

"American String Quartets: 1900-1950." Peter Mennin, Aaron Copland, Walter Piston, George Gershwin, Virgil Thomson, Charles Ives, William Schuman, Roger Sessions, Howard Hanson, and Kohon String Quartet. New York: Vox, 1974.

UMK MNL Music A/V RD 93:6846

---. "Four Saints in Three Acts." Gertrude Stein, Clamma Dale, Gwendolyn Bradley, Betty Allen, Florence Quivar, William Brown, Arthur Thompson, Benjamin Matthews, Joel Thome, and Orchestra of Our Time. Los Angeles, CA: Nonesuch, 1982.

UMK Music A/V CD 90:58

---. "A Portrait Album." Paul Jacobs, Joseph Silverstein, Virgil Thomson, Virgil Thomson, Virgil Thomson, Virgil Thomson, and American Brass Quintet. Los Angeles, Calif: Nonesuch, 1982.

UMK MNL Music A/V RD 93:4433

Video

Thomson, Virgil, John Huszar, Jacquelyn Mae Helin, Betty Allen, John Van Buskirk, Grayson Hirst, Kirk La Vine, and FilmAmerica, Inc. Virgil Thomson at 90. 1 videocassette (57 min, 55 sec.) videorecording. New York: FilmAmerica, 1986.

UMK MNL Music A/V MV 96:95

Return to index

For a related exhibit and program, see http://library.umkc.edu/spec-col/ParisofthePlains/announce.htm for information on the UMKC Libraries exhibit: Kansas City: The Paris of the Plains, 1910-1940, October 26, 2000 - May 30, 2001 and the Web exhibit online now.