Gertrude Stein was born in Allegheny, Pittsburgh USA in 1874, 150 years ago this year. In 1902, she left America for Paris with her brother Leo. Their home at 27 Rue de Fleurus, near the Luxembourg Gardens, became an important centre of the modernist movement. In 1907 Stein met her wife Alice B. Toklas and their life as lovers, supporters, collectors, adventurers and publishers would endure until Stein's death in 1946. Gertrude and Alice befriended and supported the young Picasso, acquiring many of his paintings and the work of his contemporaries, Matisse and Gaugin. By the time they had finished, they had created one of the most important collections of modern French painting in the world. Most importantly of all, Gertrude Stein reimagined what writing could be and how language itself might be used, inspiring generations of writers including Ernest Hemingway and Sherwood Anderson.

Gertrude Stein was a masculine, openly lesbian woman who lived her life on her own terms; good-natured, idiosyncratic, brilliant. Her last words were: 'What is the answer?' When she received no reply from Alice, she simply laughed and said, 'Then what is the question?'.