Sarah Stein

Sarah Stein (née Samuels) (July 26, 1870 – 1953) was an American art collector. With her husband Michael Stein, the older brother of Leo Stein and Gertrude Stein, she lived in Paris from 1903 to 1935. She supported and popularized the painter Henri Matisse.

Early life Sarah Samuels was born in San Francisco. She was the daughter of a wealthy German-Jewish merchant. She was given the nickname "Sally" by Jack London.

She married Michael Stein in March 1894. They had one child, Allan Daniel Stein, who was born on November 1, 1895, in San Francisco. Michael sold a streetcar business in 1903 and moved with Sarah and Allan to Paris in the same year.

Paris Sarah and her husband lived mostly in and out of Paris. "The couple was ... educated, and up-to-date. They collected art and tried to keep abreast of the latest trends in education, health, and philosophy."

Sarah and Michael lived in conventional bourgeois comfort as they accumulated paintings and other objects with as much enthusiasm as Leo and Gertrude Stein. The couple concentrated almost exclusively on the work of Henri Matisse, beginning with their first purchase (with Leo and Gertrude) of Woman with a Hat at the Salon d'Automne in 1905. She was one of Matisse's staunchest friends and supporters from 1905 until she and her husband left Paris in the 1930s. In 1906, on a visit to the U.S. after the San Francisco earthquake, Sarah and her husband brought Matisse's work to America, and later took occasional commissions to secure other examples of his works for American collectors.

In 1908, with financial support from Michael, Sarah persuaded Matisse to open a school of painting. Sarah took informal instruction from Matisse. In her notes for the class, the most detailed record of what went on that has survived, Matisse sounded humanistic rather than radical. He stressed the value of working from the antique, and condemned any modern neglect of spiritual values.

The Steins were among the Americans who loaned Matisse's work to the 1913 Armory Show, two examples that provided the largest public in America with its first close look at a notorious modernist. In 1914, the Steins agreed to lend nineteen of their finest canvases to Berlin, for an exhibition in Fritz Gurlitt's Gallery. World War I blocked their works in Germany and they were never recovered.

Sarah and her husband also instituted a weekly open house where they showed their growing collection. "The popular Saturday evening gatherings held at 58 rue Madame, the remodeled parish house into which the elder Steins moved soon after their arrival in Paris... provided Sarah with a captive audience for he disquisitions on Matisse's genius." Sarah used the open houses as a forum in which to talk about and ideas.

The Steins were fond of modern theories of health and fitness, and took up stringent new diets and exercise regimens. They believed depressions and anxieties could be relived through physical self-discipline. The Steins also took interest in psychology and medicine, and Sarah in particular followed her sister-in-law's progress at Radcliffe. Sarah's letters from San Francisco are full of questions about Gertrude's course.

Tribute Saxophonist Benny Golson dedicates a piece to him in his album "Free" (1963): "Shades Of Stein". The track features coltrane changes.