Mina Loy

Mina Loy
Mina Loy in 1917
Born	Mina Gertrude Löwry (1882-12-27)27 December 1882 London, England
Died	25 September 1966(1966-09-25) (aged 83) Aspen, Colorado
Occupation	Writer: poet, playwright, novelist; actress, designer
Movement	Modernism, futurism

Mina Loy, born Mina Gertrude Löwy (27 December 1882 – 25 September 1966), was a British artist, writer: poet, playwright, novelist, futurist, feminist, designer of lamps, and bohemian. She was one of the last of the first generation modernists to achieve posthumous recognition. Her poetry was admired by T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, Basil Bunting, Gertrude Stein, Francis Picabia and Yvor Winters, among others.

Loy was born in London. She was the daughter of a Hungarian Jewish father and an English Protestant mother. Loy's first hobby was art. She studied painting in Munich at St. John's Wood School in 1897 for two years. While in London, as an art student, Loy became involved with Stephen Haweis. They moved to Paris to paint and were married there in 1903. Instead of taking her husband's name, Mina changed "Lowy" to "Loy," struggling with the now-familiar feminist dilemma of trying to choose and define what's in a name.

Loy's first child, Oda, was born in May 1904. By 1905 she was a frequent guest at the pre-Toklas Stein salon where—in addition to Leo and Gertrude—she met Apollinaire, Picasso, and Rousseau. She became good friends with Gertrude. Oda died on her first birthday, and the marriage was already faltering by the time (Loy and Haweis) moved to Florence later in the same year. Mina had two more children—Joella in 1907 and Giles in 1908. According to Gillian Hanscombe and Virginia L. Smyers, "During their ten years in Florence, both Mina and Haweis took lovers and developed their separate lives. In 1913 and 1914, though she was coping with motherhood, a soured marriage, lovers, and her own artistic aspirations, Mina found time to notice and take part in the emerging Italian Futurist movement, led by Filippo Marinetti, and to read Stein's manuscript:The Making of Americans. She became, also, at this time, a lifelong convert to Christian Science."