Nathalie Barney
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Nathalie Barney (1876-1972), also known as Natalie Barney, was a American heiress who became well known as the mistress of a literary salon in France.
Her literary career began as a result of her friendship with poet Rémy de Gourmont, who gave her the nickname "The Amazon." It was well known that she was homosexual, and she had affairs with a number of the celebrities of the day, including actress Liane de Pougy and poet Renée Vivien. However, her primary relationship was with the American painter Romaine Brooks, and they were together for many years. Brooks' portrait of Barney is one of her finest paintings. Nathalie Barney published several books, of verse, drama, and her memoirs.
But it was as the keeper of a weekly Friday salon that she is best remembered. Cultural celebrities as varied as Auguste Rodin, Rainer Maria Rilke, Colette, James Joyce, Paul Valéry, the Sitwell siblings, Pierre Louys, Anatole France, Count Robert de Montesquiou, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Toklas, Somerset Maugham, T. S. Eliot, Ford Madox Ford, Isadora Duncan, Ezra Pound, Virgil Thomson, Jean Cocteau, Max Jacob, André Gide, William Carlos Williams, Djuna Barnes, George Antheil, Janet Flanner, Nancy Cunard, Peggy Guggenheim, Mina Loy, Caresse and Harry Crosby, Marie Laurencin, Oscar Milosz, Paul Claudel, Adrienne Monnier, Sylvia Beach, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sinclair Lewis, Sherwood Anderson, Hart Crane, Alan Seeger, Mary McCarthy, Truman Capote, Françoise Sagan, and Marguerite Yourcenar were among her guests.
External link
- The Natalie Barney website (http://www.natalie-barney.com/)