Gertrude Stein wrote "If I Told Him : A Completed Portrait of Picasso” in 1923. It was first published in "Vanity Fair" in 1924 and she subsequently published it in her collection "Portraits and Prayers". This poem was part of a multi-decade intertextual dialogue between Stein and Pablo Picasso. Stein was one of the first to exhibit Picasso’s paintings at her weekly salons at 27 rue de Fleurus