Well…this was inevitable, wasn’t it? Once the idea of mapping connections between writers, artists and undefinable members of semi-forgotten scenes was in the air, it was a given that writer, saloniste and singular cultural catalyst Natalie Clifford Barney (born on this day in 1876) would turn up at the midpoint of one of these busy diagrams.
One of the most prominent of Paris’s 20th century American expatriates, Barney networked at an Olympian level. This diagram is largely limited to her close relationships, none of which was of greater duration or intensity than that with painter Romaine Brooks. But if you want to know who came to her weekly literary salon, which lasted an extraordinary 60 years, just make a list of every prominent author who lived in or spent any length of time in Paris during that period and it’s likely they would have been there.
Thinly veiled literary works both by and about Barney abound, full of tempestuous passions, relics of a time when you couldn’t even score a fingerbang on the Left Bank without someone penning a roman à clef about it.
click through for a more legible view
Further reading
Salon queen, Pearls: Natalie Clifford Barney
Grey eminence, Romaine Brooks | drawings, The Other Amazon (Romaine Brooks)
Goodbye Dolly (Dolly Wilde)
Caribbean Queen, Strange Flowers guide to London: part 3, Before Whale Cay, Dress-down Friday: Joe Carstairs (Joe Carstairs)
Float like a butterfly, sting like a butterfly, Arthur Cravan: poet, boxer, blogger, Three shows, Arthur Cravan est vivant!, Pearls: Arthur Cravan
World Famous Aerial Queen, Dress-down Friday: Janet Flanner, El hombre elefante, Pearls: Janet Flanner
Dress-down Friday: Djuna Barnes, Djuna 40/80/120, Circles: H.D./Bryher, Djuna Barnes | drawings
Dress-down Friday: Thelma Wood
Dada Baroness, Strange Flowers guide to Berlin, part 2 and 4, I am such miserable thing (Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven)
Monsieur le Marquis, La Marquise de Sade, Dress-down Friday: Mathilde de Morny
Sodom’s ambassador to Paris, A Lorrain special, part 1 and part 2 (Jean Lorrain)
Pearls: Colette
I will never understand how Mina Loy managed to stay so horribly, rigidly straight with friends like these. I mean really.
I mean it’s just poor manners if nothing else.
Pingback: Pearls: Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven « Strange Flowers
James, what would it be like to take a crack at the legacies matrix? Could you take it out three generations or more? I expect you could. What fun… For instance, I see you have a page on Philippe Jullian. Start there….
Pingback: Circles: Charles Henri Ford « Strange Flowers
Pingback: Dress-down Friday: Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven | Strange Flowers
Pingback: Pearls: Djuna Barnes | Strange Flowers
Pingback: Wild hearts at midnight | Strange Flowers
Love the circles chart, really illustrates one of the more fascinating elements about these people, all the connections and degrees of separations.
Thanks for the comment!
Pingback: Georges Bottini | Lorrain illustrations | Strange Flowers
Pingback: Romaine Brooks | portraits | Strange Flowers
Pingback: Carl Van Vechten | writers | Strange Flowers
Pingback: Amazons in space | Strange Flowers
Through Winaretta Singer, Princess (Edmond) de Polignac, you can arrive at Violet Keppel Trefusis (lover) and Olga, baroness de Meyer,(lover) Violet Trefusis leads to Vita Sackville-West.
Pingback: The literary lion in winter | Strange Flowers
Yep, good one Chris B. de L.
Pingback: Wild hearts in wartime | Strange Flowers
Pingback: Romaine Brooks: A Life | Strange Flowers
Pingback: Last night I dreamt I went to rue Jacob again | Strange Flowers
Pingback: My one, my eternal mate | Strange Flowers
Pingback: 19 books for 2019 | Strange Flowers
Pingback: Secret Satan, 2019 translation edition | Strange Flowers
Pingback: 20 books for 2020 | Strange Flowers
Pingback: Amazon in her prime | Strange Flowers
Pingback: Summer* reading list | Strange Flowers