“Such Friends”: 100 Years Ago, March 23, 1923, corner of quai des Grands-Augustins and 1 rue Git-le-Coeur, Paris

Visiting novelist John Dos Passos, 27, is enjoying tagging along with his fellow American writer Donald Ogden Stewart, 28, walking around Paris, visiting some of the ex-pats Stewart knows.

Quai des Grands-Augustins

At this address Dos Passos is introduced to the Murphys—Gerald, about to turn 35, and Sara, 39. Stewart was a few years behind Gerald at Yale, and he has given the couple a big build-up, describing them as a prince and a princess. Dos Passos, a cynic from Harvard, figures he won’t succumb to their allure.

Dos Passos is impressed with Sara, one of the most charming women he’s ever met. Gerald seems a bit distracted. He’s getting ready for a big dinner party they’re throwing.

John Dos Passos

The Murphys are in the process of renovating this apartment, with its white walls, lacquered black floors, Mexican rugs, and floor to ceiling windows surrounded by red antique brocade drapes, a perfect frame for the fabulous view down the River Seine.

Gerald and Sara have become huge fans of the Kamerny Theatre from Moscow, and this party is to celebrate their successful run at the Theatre de Champs-Elysees. The Murphys have been to all 10 of the Kamerney’s performances..

Kamerny Theatre poster

The Murphys’ new Algerian chef is making couscous; dessert will be slightly obscene-shaped chocolate mousse with crème Chantilly; and there will, of course, be plenty of wine.

Because they are in the midst of the renovation, there are few pieces of furniture for guests to sit on. Gerald and Sara have improvised, placing mattresses and pillows all over and covering them with brocade fabric. Planks mounted on blocks will serve as tables. Plumbers’ lamps will do for lighting. And, supporters of the arts that they are, the Murphys have attached to the walls “found sculptures” made from bicycle wheels and other discarded junk by their new friend, Fernand Leger, 42.

Sara graciously invites their guests, Stewart and Dos Passos, to stay for the party. But Dos Passos declines. He never feels comfortable in situations like this and is embarrassed by his stammer.

“Such Friends”:  100 Years Ago… is the basis for the series, “Such Friends”:  The Literary 1920s. Volumes I through III, covering 1920 through 1922 are available at Riverstone Books in Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, PA. They are also on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in print and e-book formats. For more information, email me at kaydee@gypsyteacher.com.

Later this month I will be talking about F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway in the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University.

Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with Fitzgerald, Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is also available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in both print and e-book versions.

If you want to walk with me through Bloomsbury, you can download my audio walking tour, “Such Friends”:  Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group.

“Such Friends”: 100 Years Ago, February 23, 1923, corner of 23 quai des Grands-Augustins and 1 rue Git-le-Coeur, Paris

American ex-pat Gerald Murphy, 34, is looking out the window of his apartment in this dilapidated 16^th century building (he and his wife Sara, 39, will renovate as soon as the sale of their Manhattan house goes through), up the Seine, past the Ile St. Louis, over to the Tuileries Gardens on the Left Bank. He really enjoyed the party tonight.

Gerald has been having an awfully good month. He was thrilled to have four of his paintings accepted into the Salon des Independents, which opened at the beginning of February. It’s certainly not selective—Motto:  “Neither Jury nor Rewards”—but many good artists are included, such as his own painting teacher, Natalia Goncharova, 41. When the officials told Gerald that his oil Boatdeck was too large, he responded,

If you think mine is too large…I think the others are too small.”

Boatdeck by Gerald Murphy in the Salon des Independents

The Paris edition of the Herald said his work showed, “a very personal point of view in the study of machinery…[revealing] a feeling for mass and a sense of decorative effect.”

Soon after the show opened, Gerald was asked by some friends to design the American booth at a major charity event—the Bal des Artistes Russes, in aid of Russian immigrants in France.

Today was the opening of the four-day festival, and what a party!

Four orchestras! Murphy thought the jazz band was the best. The guests were dressed either as Russian peasants or cubist paintings. The rooms were filled with paintings by artists such as Russian Goncharova and Spaniard Juan Gris, 35.

For entertainment, Romanian-French writer Tristan Tzara, 26, read one of his poems, and the fabulous Fratellini Brothers performed their usual star turn.

The Fratellini Brothers

Goncharova sold her masks in the Russian booth; the Japanese booth had kabuki theatre with dancers.

One of the showstoppers is Gerald’s futuristic American exhibit, featuring a reconstruction of huge skyscrapers with blinking electric lights, recreating New York City’s Great White Way right here in Paris. It is sooo American…

“Such Friends”:  100 Years Ago… is the basis for the series, “Such Friends”:  The Literary 1920s. Volumes I through III, covering 1920 through 1922 are available at Thoor Ballylee in Co. Galway, and as signed copies at Riverstone Books in Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, PA. They are also on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in print and e-book formats. For more information, email me at kaydee@gypsyteacher.com.

This summer I will be talking about F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University.

Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with Fitzgerald, Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is also available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in both print and e-book versions.

If you want to walk with me through Bloomsbury, you can download my audio walking tour, “Such Friends”:  Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group.

“Such Friends”: 100 Years Ago, Mid-May, 1920, Ile St. Louis, Paris

Painter Duncan Grant, 35, is having a glass of wine in the most fabulous apartment, lent to him by posh friends for the past two months, at the tip of Ile St. Louis, looking out at Notre Dame.

What a great trip.

Two months ago he was home in London, with his partner, fellow painter Vanessa Bell, 41, listening to a reading of a memoir by her sister, novelist Virginia Woolf, 38.

The next night, he was in Paris dining with his former lover, economist John Maynard Keynes, 37, at legendary restaurant La Perouse, with its scandalous secret rooms.

La Perouse, 51 Quai des Grands Augustins

On the Tuesday he arrived he had written to Vanessa back in London, describing the flat as

full of Bonnards & Vuillards & exquisite views over the Seine with an old world French house servant called Jean. I have only seen it all by the light of the sunset…I do wish you could come before Friday night.”

Vanessa did come over and they had gone with Keynes to Rome for a month. Maynard had wisely determined that the lire would sink against the pound and advised them to spend. Which they did.

Duncan Grant and Maynard Keynes

Rome was filled with tourists. Duncan wrote to his lover, Bunny Garnett, 28, who was staying in Duncan’s rooms back in Bloomsbury, that Rome

is packed with the Italian aristocrats who simply love living in hotels and leaving their estates to Bolsheviks in the country. Our hotel is cram full of contessas, marchesas, principessas, and duchesses. They don’t get up till lunch, at 1, have a siesta till about 4, eat ices and drink coffee till 5 when they take a drive on the Pincio, home to dinner at 9:30. Jazz till 2, even the old ladies received till 4 or 5 in the morning…1 can buy masses of arum lilies irises roses pansies and marigolds for a few francs on the steps of the Piazza di Spagna.”

Maynard, now quite the celebrity economist, had been invited to visit with American art historian Bernard Berenson, 54, at his Villa I Tatti outside Florence. He had insisted that Vanessa and Duncan come along.

Back in Paris, the month of May had started off with riots during the International Labor Day celebrations, and then strikes broke out all over the country—dock workers, coal miners, and, most inconvenient of all, railway workers.

Vanessa had written letters home about their fascinating dinners with

the Derains, Braque & Mme., and Satie—sat til 2 am outside Lipps talking in the end only to the Derains—all the others went. It was very hot & got delicious at that hour. Derain was perfectly charming & so was she. In fact the more I see of her the more I like her & the more I am overcome by her beauty. I think she’s one of the most astonishing people I’ve ever met & less terrifying than she was at first.”

Mme. Derain in a White Shawl by Andre Derain

His traveling companions have all left, so today Duncan goes back to La Perouse for lunch, this time with the founder of Nouvelle Revue Française (The New French Review), Andre Gide, 50, and his lover of the past four years, photographer Marc Allegret, 19.

Now it is time for Duncan to go back home to London. One last glass of wine…

“Such Friends”:  100 Years Ago… is the basis for the book, “Such Friends”:  The Literary 1920s, to be published by K. Donnelly Communications. For more information, email me at kaydee@gpysyteacher.com.

If you want to walk with me through Bloomsbury, you can download my audio walking tour, “Such Friends”: Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group.

In 2020 I will be talking about writers’ salons before and after the Great War in Ireland, England, France and America in the University of Pittsburgh’s Osher Lifelong Learning program.

Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins and his relationships with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is available on Amazon in both print and Kindle versions.