For over 60 years, Barney hosted a literary salon, a weekly gathering at which people met to socialize and discuss literature, art, music and any other topic of interest.
Barney strove to feature women's writing while also hosting some of the most prominent male writers of her time.
She brought together expatriate Modernists with members of the French Academy.
Joan Schenkar described Barney's salon as "a place where lesbian assignations and appointments with academics could coexist in a kind of cheerful, cross-pollinating, cognitive dissonance."

In the 1900s Barney held early gatherings of the salon at her house in Neuilly.
The entertainment included poetry readings and theatricals (in which Colette sometimes performed).
Mata Hari performed a dance once, riding into the garden as Lady Godiva on a white horse harnessed with turquoise cloisonné.

The play Equivoque may have led Barney to leave Neuilly in 1909.
According to a contemporary newspaper article, her landlord objected to her holding an outdoor performance of a play about Sappho, which he felt "followed nature too closely".
She canceled her lease and rented the pavilion at 20, Rue Jacob in Paris's Latin Quarter and her salon was held there until the late 1960s.
This was a small two-story house, separated on three sides from the main building on the street.
Next to the pavillon was a large, overgrown garden with a Doric "Temple of Friendship" tucked into one corner.
In this new location, the salon grew a more prim outward face, with poetry readings and conversation, perhaps because Barney had been told the pavillon's floors would not hold up to large dancing parties.
Frequent guests during this period included Pierre Louÿs, Paul Claudel, Philippe Berthelot and translator J. C. Mardrus.

During World War I the salon became a haven for those opposed to the war.
Henri Barbusse once gave a reading from his anti-war novel Under Fire and Barney hosted a Women's Congress for Peace at the Rue Jacob.
Other visitors to the salon during the war included Oscar Milosz, Auguste Rodin and poet Alan Seeger, who came while on leave from the French Foreign Legion.

In the early 1920s, Ezra Pound was a close friend of Barney's and often visited.
The two schemed together to subsidize Paul Valéry and T. S. Eliot so they could quit their jobs and focus on writing, but Valéry found other patrons and Eliot refused the grant.
 Pound introduced Barney to avant-garde composer George Antheil and while her own taste in music leaned towards the traditional, she hosted premieres of Antheil's Symphony for Five Instruments and First String Quartet at the Rue Jacob.
It was also at Barney's salon that Pound met his longtime mistress, the violinist Olga Rudge.

In 1927 Barney started an Académie des Femmes (Women's Academy) to honor women writers.
This was a response to the influential French Academy which had been founded in the 17th century by Louis XIII and whose 40 "immortals" included no women at the time.
Unlike the French Academy, her Women's Academy was not a formal organization, but rather a series of readings held as part of the regular Friday salons.
Honorees included Colette, Gertrude Stein, Anna Wickham, Rachilde, Lucie Delarue-Mardrus, Mina Loy, Djuna Barnes and posthumously, Renée Vivien.

Other visitors to the salon during the 1920s included French writers Jeanne Galzy, André Gide, Anatole France, Max Jacob, Louis Aragon and Jean Cocteau along with English-language writers Ford Madox Ford, W. Somerset Maugham, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sinclair Lewis, Sherwood Anderson, Thornton Wilder, T. S. Eliot and William Carlos Williams and moreover, German poet Rainer Maria Rilke, Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore (the first Nobel laureate from Asia), Romanian aesthetician and diplomat Matila Ghyka, journalist Janet Flanner (who set the New Yorker style), journalist, activist and publisher Nancy Cunard, publishers Caresse and Harry Crosby, publisher Blanche Knopf, art collector and patron Peggy Guggenheim, Sylvia Beach (the bookstore owner who published James Joyce's Ulysses), painters Tamara de Lempicka
For over 60 years, Barney hosted a literary salon, a weekly gathering at which people met to socialize and discuss literature, art, music and any other topic of interest. Barney strove to feature women's writing while also hosting some of the most prominent male writers of her time. She brought together expatriate Modernists with members of the French Academy. Joan Schenkar described Barney's salon as "a place where lesbian assignations and appointments with academics could coexist in a kind of cheerful, cross-pollinating, cognitive dissonance."
In the 1900s Barney held early gatherings of the salon at her house in Neuilly. The entertainment included poetry readings and theatricals (in which Colette sometimes performed). Mata Hari performed a dance once, riding into the garden as Lady Godiva on a white horse harnessed with turquoise cloisonné.
The play Equivoque may have led Barney to leave Neuilly in 1909. According to a contemporary newspaper article, her landlord objected to her holding an outdoor performance of a play about Sappho, which he felt "followed nature too closely". She canceled her lease and rented the pavilion at 20, Rue Jacob in Paris's Latin Quarter and her salon was held there until the late 1960s. This was a small two-story house, separated on three sides from the main building on the street. Next to the pavillon was a large, overgrown garden with a Doric "Temple of Friendship" tucked into one corner. In this new location, the salon grew a more prim outward face, with poetry readings and conversation, perhaps because Barney had been told the pavillon's floors would not hold up to large dancing parties. Frequent guests during this period included Pierre Louÿs, Paul Claudel, Philippe Berthelot and translator J. C. Mardrus.
During World War I the salon became a haven for those opposed to the war. Henri Barbusse once gave a reading from his anti-war novel Under Fire and Barney hosted a Women's Congress for Peace at the Rue Jacob. Other visitors to the salon during the war included Oscar Milosz, Auguste Rodin and poet Alan Seeger, who came while on leave from the French Foreign Legion.
In the early 1920s, Ezra Pound was a close friend of Barney's and often visited. The two schemed together to subsidize Paul Valéry and T. S. Eliot so they could quit their jobs and focus on writing, but Valéry found other patrons and Eliot refused the grant.  Pound introduced Barney to avant-garde composer George Antheil and while her own taste in music leaned towards the traditional, she hosted premieres of Antheil's Symphony for Five Instruments and First String Quartet at the Rue Jacob. It was also at Barney's salon that Pound met his longtime mistress, the violinist Olga Rudge.
In 1927 Barney started an Académie des Femmes (Women's Academy) to honor women writers. This was a response to the influential French Academy which had been founded in the 17th century by Louis XIII and whose 40 "immortals" included no women at the time. Unlike the French Academy, her Women's Academy was not a formal organization, but rather a series of readings held as part of the regular Friday salons. Honorees included Colette, Gertrude Stein, Anna Wickham, Rachilde, Lucie Delarue-Mardrus, Mina Loy, Djuna Barnes and posthumously, Renée Vivien.
Other visitors to the salon during the 1920s included French writers Jeanne Galzy, André Gide, Anatole France, Max Jacob, Louis Aragon and Jean Cocteau along with English-language writers Ford Madox Ford, W. Somerset Maugham, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sinclair Lewis, Sherwood Anderson, Thornton Wilder, T. S. Eliot and William Carlos Williams and moreover, German poet Rainer Maria Rilke, Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore (the first Nobel laureate from Asia), Romanian aesthetician and diplomat Matila Ghyka, journalist Janet Flanner (who set the New Yorker style), journalist, activist and publisher Nancy Cunard, publishers Caresse and Harry Crosby, publisher Blanche Knopf, art collector and patron Peggy Guggenheim, Sylvia Beach (the bookstore owner who published James Joyce's Ulysses), painters Tamara de Lempicka 
Natalie Clifford Barney