> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://hyperallergic.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# An Idiot's Guide to the Steins
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/guide-to-the-steins/
- Published: 2011-05-11T00:00:59.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T15:40:59.000Z
- Description: A YouTube video narrated by the Metropolitan Museum's associate curator Rebecca Rabinow gives us a quick primer on the Steins, starring Gertrude and Leo. Rabinow tells us the takeaway on one of art history's greatest collecting families.
- Author: Kyle Chayka
- Tags: Opinion, #image-position-hidden, Gertrude Stein, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Video, Videodrome, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2025-11-17 09:23 (2009-2011)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2011/05/gertrudestein_top.jpg "gertrudestein_top")

A YouTube video narrated by the Metropolitan Museum’s associate curator Rebecca Rabinow gives us a quick primer on the Steins, starring Gertrude and Leo. Rabinow tells us the takeaway on one of art history’s greatest collecting families.

“The Steins’ collection shows what a family with limited resources but a great eye can accomplish \[their\] enthusiasm shaped the development of Western art as we know it today,” Rabinow says. During the early 20th century and the heyday of Post-Impressionism and Cubism, the Steins were a driving influence, supporting artists like Picasso and Matisse with their purchases, as well as helping to turn Paris into a magnet of artistic culture. Rabinow co-curated the Met’s upcoming [*The Steins Collect*](http://www.metmuseum.org/ways%5Fto%5Fgive/corporate/sponsorship/opportunities?ref=hyperallergic.com#c3), an exhibition that will gather together objects from the family’s historic art holdings.