(June 12th, 1892 – June 18th, 1982): #DjunaBarnes, an American artist, illustrator, and writer, is best known for her work #Nightwood, a lesbian fiction novel she published in 1936.
Growing up in a very progressive household on Storm King Mountain in New York, Barnes’ grandmother was also a writer and Women’s Suffrage activist and her father was an advocate for polygamy, who married Barnes’ mother in 1889 and in 1897 had his mistress move in with them. A large family, they often struggled with money as Barnes’ grandmother attempted to support them with her writing career. Her family eventually split up in 1912 as a result of the financial ruin. Barnes then moved to New York City with her mother and brothers.
After a brief foray into art school, Barnes took a job at the #BrooklynDailyEagle to better support her family. Upon taking the job, she is claimed to have said, “I can draw and write, and you’d be a fool not to hire me,” which is now inscribed in the Brooklyn Museum. Her work was subjective and experiential, and featured in almost every newspaper in New York, from interviews to features to theatre reviews, so would also illustrate her stories with original artwork. Her work also featured coverage of the growing Women’s Suffrage Movement in New York and eyewitness accounts of other women’s rights issues of the day.
Becoming consumed in the Bohemian world of Greenwich Village, where she eventually moved to as her journalistic endeavors proved fruitful, Barnes released a collection of poetry and original artwork called #TheBookOfRepulsiveWomen in 1915 that described sex between women. The work was never legally challenged (as this was against the law at that time), it is believed by most that the imagery and metaphor of such an act were “above the heads” of most of the critics. Barnes also wrote a few one-act plays, which were produced in the Provincetown Players’ Greenwich Village theater in 1919 and 1920. In the Village, Barnes explored her own sexuality, having affairs with both men and women, preaching free love though passionately rejecting childbearing.
In the 1920s, Barnes traveled to Paris and remained there, furthering her Bohemian lifestyle. Here she would engage in several salons and discuss matters with artists and writers, becoming a fast friend of James Joyce. Inspired by Joyce, she wrote her first autobiographical novel, #Ryder, which became a New York Times bestseller so fast (only 3,000 copies were made for the first edition), that by the time they could reprint a second edition public interest in the book had waned. In the 1930s, Barnes moved to the country manor of #PeggyGuggenheim, where she published #Nightwood, which did not sell well. Depressed and relying heavily on alcohol to get through the pain, she attempted suicide in 1939 before returning to New York and eventually became sober by the 1950s, relying on wealthy benefactors to make ends meet and some writing. Living the remainder of her life in seclusion, she was elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1961 and awarded a senior fellowship by the National Endowment of Arts in 1981. She died a year later, six days after her 90th birthday. Her work greatly influenced that of Truman Capote, Dylan Thomas, and Anais Nin.
#LGBTQIA #PrideMonth #YouCannotEraseUs
Legends of Pride 