Natalie Barney: An American Amazon
![Image](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeIRRUD-HD2SsGK5qFuQKhedOldpYYti95aOk6ts-tcvyEi1XR-PXMp4TKH-ExWwE7R_bA__69gclqcwC4zJChf_402ZZ9fe4KV4TZpITRx40zD5W2x7f31cLxX5V3RRgttklvMaIHaaE/s1600/200px-Natalie_Barney_in_Fur_Cape.jpg)
Natalie Barney painted by her mother Alice Pike Barney Natalie Barney (1876-1972) was probably one of the most fascinating and maddening woman of the 19 th and early 20 th century. She was a great seductress whose list of conquests sounds like a who’s who of the Belle Époque, Collette, the poet Renee Vivien, the painter Romaine Brooks, Dolly Wilde, the Duchesse de Clermont-Tonnerre, just to name a few. Although her epic love life alone would be enough for a place in the history books, Natalie was much more than just a female Casanova. She was also a writer, playwright, and poet who held a salon for more than 60 years on Paris’s Left Bank, which brought together artists from around the world. Barney was a bridge between the Parisian community and the ex-pats who flocked to Paris particularly after WWI. She was what you might call a facilitator. She also worked to promote women writers by founding a “Women’s Academy” in response to the all-male French Academy. Like G