| Natalie
Clifford Barney
was born in Dayton, Ohio to Albert Clifford Barney and Alice
Pike Barney. Raised in the wealthy, high-class fashion, Natalie
had the finest French tutors and traveled to Europe many times.
The strict
Protestant morality forced on Natalie by her father drove
her to do all she could to separate herself from the life
he wished for her. Seeing her parents' unhappy marriage, Natalie
vowed never to marry and managed to escape her traditional
position in society. Natalie strove to
live the life she thought was most ideal and natural: a free,
lesbian existence which focused on art and passion (Benstock).
Natalie
"settled in Paris in 1902 at the height of the belle
époque" (Dynes, 108). Living among
the American Expatriates, like Gertrude Stein and Djuna Barnes,
Natalie wrote poetry and did much to encourage others' art.
She was able to live her independent, bohemian, lesbian lifestyle
because of the financial security she gained from her family's
railroad fortune. With her wealth Natalie was able to promote
many other writers and artists while continuing her salon
for over half a century (Benstock).
Barney
may have been more infamous for her openly homosexual lifestyle,
her many lovers, and her salon (Académie
des Femme) than her own work, but all of these aspects of
her life were ruled by her philosophy to live life as an art
and to do it 'openly, without hiding anything' (Benstock,272).
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