Gertrude Stein is guilty of casting damaging aspersions upon two immensely worthy subjects, neither deserving her snarky opprobrium. “Oakland, California - there is no there there” Oakland is one of the most beautiful cities in the world and if not for ever-so-precious San Francisco, it would be the jewel of the Bay and of the whole west coast. Stein’s denigration of Matisse comparing him unfavorably to her little lap dog Picasso and her intentional mis-reading and mis-telling Matisse’s remark that he simply "wished to paint pictures that might add a little comfort to a bourgeois life". Picasso rode into his exalted place in the art world on the coattails of firebrand Matisse who had been the stalking horse of modern painting while Picasso was painting murals in smoky cafes in Barcelona. Matisse constructed an intellectual environment in the Paris art world that enabled Picasso and his bande to pursue their bold explorations. If not for the new territory opened by Matisse Picasso would have remained a stylistic magpie.