Author. She was an American-born French author of poems and poses, who had a free-spirit with an untraditional lifestyle for that era. Her father, Albert Clifford Barney, inherited a railroad fortune, which allowed her to move in the highest social and diplomatic circles. With high society and its rigid protocol being considered to be boring to her, she was eager to pursue her own adventures. As a child, she had visited Europe many times, and when she was twenty-four, she settled permanently in Paris. On Friday nights, her literary salon was opened to musical concerts, plays, dance performances, and literary readings. Promoting female authors, she formed the L'Académie des Femmes or Women's Academy in 1927, in response to L'Académie Française, which admitted only men. For fifty years, her life and literary salon was the center of lesbian genius and talent in the first half of the 20th century and included Radclyffe Hall, Gertrude Stein, Djuna Barnes, Lady Troubridge, Alice B. Toklas, as well as some gay male literary figures as Jean Cocteau, Truman Capote, Gore Vidal and Andre Gidé. She was called "The Amazon of letters." She had affairs with many different women but the true loves of her life were the American poet Renee Vivien and especially the American painter, portraitist and artist Romaine Brooks. The two were together in a primary relationship that lasted over 50 years. A prolific writer, she published five volumes of poetry; three of epigrams; two books of essays; one novel, "The One Who is Legion, or AD's After-Life" in 1930, which was her only writing published in English; and three memoirs, "Aventures de l'Esprit" in 1929; "Souvenirs Indiscrets" in 1960; and "Traits et Portraits" in 1963. Natalie Barney died at the age of ninety-five in the same house at 20 rue Jacob where she had lived and operated her salon for nearly sixty years.
Author. She was an American-born French author of poems and poses, who had a free-spirit with an untraditional lifestyle for that era. Her father, Albert Clifford Barney, inherited a railroad fortune, which allowed her to move in the highest social and diplomatic circles. With high society and its rigid protocol being considered to be boring to her, she was eager to pursue her own adventures. As a child, she had visited Europe many times, and when she was twenty-four, she settled permanently in Paris. On Friday nights, her literary salon was opened to musical concerts, plays, dance performances, and literary readings. Promoting female authors, she formed the L'Académie des Femmes or Women's Academy in 1927, in response to L'Académie Française, which admitted only men. For fifty years, her life and literary salon was the center of lesbian genius and talent in the first half of the 20th century and included Radclyffe Hall, Gertrude Stein, Djuna Barnes, Lady Troubridge, Alice B. Toklas, as well as some gay male literary figures as Jean Cocteau, Truman Capote, Gore Vidal and Andre Gidé. She was called "The Amazon of letters." She had affairs with many different women but the true loves of her life were the American poet Renee Vivien and especially the American painter, portraitist and artist Romaine Brooks. The two were together in a primary relationship that lasted over 50 years. A prolific writer, she published five volumes of poetry; three of epigrams; two books of essays; one novel, "The One Who is Legion, or AD's After-Life" in 1930, which was her only writing published in English; and three memoirs, "Aventures de l'Esprit" in 1929; "Souvenirs Indiscrets" in 1960; and "Traits et Portraits" in 1963. Natalie Barney died at the age of ninety-five in the same house at 20 rue Jacob where she had lived and operated her salon for nearly sixty years.
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