Natalie clifford barney biography
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Biography
1876 - 1972
“Time engraves our faces with all the tears we have not shed.”
– Natalie Clifford Barney
Born to extraordinary wealth in Dayton, Natalie abhorred the rigid conventions of high society, which dictated she do no more than develop the necessary charms to win a suitable husband. Knowing she was a lesbian since age 12, she would have none of it. At 24 she settled in Paris and published lesbian love sonnets under a nom dem plume. After her father’s death in 1902 she vowed never to conceal her identity again, saying “My queerness is not a vice, is not deliberate, and harms no one.” For over 60 years a weekly salon was held in Barney’s home on the Left Bank where such talents as Colette, Andre Gide, Oscar Wilde, James Joyce, Proust, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Djuna Barnes, and Gertrude Stein all visited. Nicknamed The Amazon – her many romantic partners included Renee Vivien, Dolly Wilde, and Romaine Brooks. In 1910 she published Je Me Souviens an
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Natalie Clifford Barney was born on October 31, 1876, in Dayton, Ohio, to an incredibly wealthy family. Her parents, Alice Pike and Albert Clifford Barney, had a ton of money from the railway industry. They also had a second child, Laura, and both Natalie and Laure were given high-class educations in line with their family’s financial status.
Before her marriage, Alice was an artist, but she gave up her pursuits after she got married. However, a chance meeting with Oscar Wilde in 1882 caused Alice to begin to pursue the arts again, writing and performing in operas. Her paintings were also shown at the Smithsonian in Washington D.C.
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As for Natalie, the meeting with Oscar Wilde imparted a great sense of purpose for her as well: “In her mem
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Natalie Clifford Barney
American playwright, poet and novelist (1876–1972)
Natalie Clifford Barney (October 31, 1876 – February 2, 1972) was an American writer who hosted a literary salon at her home in Paris that brought together French and international writers. She influenced other authors through her salon and also with her poetry, plays, and epigrams, often thematically tied to her lesbianism and feminism.
Barney was born into a wealthy family. She was partly educated in France, and expressed a desire from a young age to live openly as a lesbian. She moved to France with her first romantic partner, Eva Palmer. Inspired by the work of Sappho, Barney began publishing love poems to women under her own name as early as 1900. Writing in both French and English, she supported feminism and pacifism. She opposed monogamy and had many overlapping long and short-term relationships, including on-and-off romances with poet Renée Vivien and courtesan Liane de Pougy and longer relati