There are a number of excellent exhibitions at Northern California museums currently, including The Steins Collect: Matisse, Picasso, and the Parisian Avant-Garde at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and Seeing Gertrude Stein: Five Stories at the Contemporary Jewish Museum. You can easily visit one museum in the morning, stop for lunch, and then walk a couple of blocks to the other museum in the afternoon. While the SFMOMA exhibition is broader in scope, focusing not only on Gertrude Stein, but on her brothers and fellow collectors, Leo and Michael, along with the artists they championed during “the birth of modern art;” the Contemporary Jewish Museum focuses primarily on Gertrude Stein, following her “life from the end of World War I through World War II,“ “illuminating her pivotal role in art during the 20th century.” By day’s end, you’ll feel both exhilarated by the masterpieces you’ve seen and awed by the foresight, intelligence, and creativity of the Stein family. These are exhibitions you’ll carry with you.
Whether you are able to attend the exhibitions or not, both catalogs are well worth their hefty prices.