Natalie Clifford Barney

Natalie Clifford Barney was an American playwright, poet and novelist who lived as an expatriate in Paris.

Barney was born in 1876 in Dayton, Ohio, to Albert Clifford Barney and Alice Pike Barney. Her father was the son of a wealthy manufacturer of railway cars and of English descent, and her mother was of French, Dutch and German ancestry. Her maternal grandfathers father was Jewish. When Barney was five years old her family spent the summer at New Yorks Long Beach Hotel where Oscar Wilde happened to be speaking on his American lecture tour. Wilde scooped her up as she ran past him fleeing a group of small boys, held her out of their reach then sat her down on his knee and told her a story. The next day he joined Barney and her mother on the beach, where their conversation changed the course of Alices life, inspiring her to pursue art seriously, despite, years later, her husbands disapproval. She later studied under CarolusDuran and James McNeill Whistler. Many of Alice Pike Barneys paintings are now in the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Source: Wikipedia