Brilliant Exiles: American Women in Paris

A scintillating account of the cultural freedom and empowerment that American women experienced as leaders in the avant-garde scene in early twentieth-century Paris. For the American women who made Paris their home during the early decades of the twentieth century, the city offered unique opportunities for personal emancipation and professional innovation. While living as expatriates in the international center of all things avant-garde, these women escaped the constraints that limited them at home and enjoyed unprecedented freedom and autonomy. Through portraiture, this volume illuminates the histories of sixty convention-defying women who contributed to the vibrant modernist milieu of Paris—including Berenice Abbott, Josephine Baker, Zelda Fitzgerald, Peggy Guggenheim, Romaine Brooks, and Gertrude Stein. Several of them rose to preeminence as cultural arbiters while exploring culture-shifting experiments in fields such as art, literature, publishing, music, fashion, journalism, theat