How It All Started...
"...when the expatriated brit opened this bar in 1923 he could not have known what it would mean..." |
In 1923, in the Montparnasse quarter of Paris, the Dingo American Bar and Restaurant was born at the hands of a former British boxer, James, or, "Jimmie the Barman" Charters. Charters sought to provide a place where people could relax and converse for a reasonable price. However, when the expatriated brit opened this bar in 1923, he could not have known what it would mean for Paris. The bar did not just serve its base purpose, but, quickly after opening, became a favorite space for American expatriates. No longer would the Dingo American Bar and Restaurant serve as a calm space to enjoy a drink and relax. Rather, it would become one of the most prominent venues used by artist from all around Paris and beyond to come and share ideas. Now, after nearly 100 years, the original Dingo American Bar and Restaurant is currently known as the L'Auberge de Venise, and rests at its original location at 10 rue Delambre in Paris.
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A Rich Literary History: |
With a long list of notable patrons, The Dingo was a hot-spot for artists in 1920's and 1930's Paris. Mentioned in Hemingway's nostalgic 1964 memoir, A Moveable Feast, The Dingo was where Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald first met and talked together in April of 1925. Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby was published just two weeks earlier. They would later maintain a long professional relationship, reading each others' work and giving feedback.
As well as meeting here with Fitzgerald, Hemingway met here often with his friends Lady Duff Twysden and her lover Pat Guthrie. These friends of his would become models for his characters Lady Brett Ashley and Mike Campbell in his first novel, The Sun Also Rises, published in 1926. In addition to these two high-profile writers, a long list of canonized writers, artists, and thinkers have been said to frequent the Dingo: James Joyce, Nancy Cunard, Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, Gertrude Stein, Djuna Barnes, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, and Salvador Dalí,
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