Tamara de Lempicka (Polish, 1980)

Tamara de Lempicka was a Polish-born painter active in Paris and the U.S. in the 1920s and 30s. She was born Tamara Gorska in Warsaw to wealthy family, and fled to Paris during the 1917 Russian Revolution. In 1916 she married Tadeusz Lempicki, a Russian lawyer and socialite, which initiated a lifestyle that would inform her body of work. While living in the French capitol throughout the 1920s, she became an integral part of the bohemian scene and was acquainted with Pablo Picasso, Jean Cocteau, and André Gide.Her paintings are influenced by Fernand Léger's Cubism, but her streamlined and designed figuration sets her apart. These qualities gives her work an Art Deco appeal, which she conveyed through her paintings of decadent celebrities and socialites. Her subject matter consisted of portraits, erotic nudes, and still lifes of calla lilies. She received considerable acclaim for her oeuvre, and became a social celebrity, famed for her aloof attitude, her lavish parties, and her love affairs with both women and men. In 1939 she moved to the U.S. with her second husband, Baron Raoul Huffner, recreating her artistic and social success in Hollywood and New York. Today, her work is collected by many celebrities, including Madonna, Jack Nicholson, and Barbara Streisand. Lempicka died on March 18, 1980 in Cuernavaca, Mexico.

Exhibitions

2004–2005
Kunstforu, Vienna
2004
Royal Academy, London
1997
Museum of Fine Arts of Hiroshima, Hiroshima
1994
Academie de France (Villa Medici), Rome
1981
Seibu, Tokyo
1972
Galerie du Luxembourg, Paris

Literature

1997
Blondel & Hiroohu, Lempicka, Tokyo, page 78, no. 32
1994
Calvesi & Borghese, Tamara de Lempicka. Tra eleganza e trasgressione. Leonardo Arte, Rome, no. 41
1994
Mori, Gioia, Lempicka Paris 1920-1938, Florence, page 196
1993
Neret Gilles, Lempicka 1898-1980, Benedikt Taschen Verlag GmbH, Cologne, page 30
1993
Thorman, Ellen Tamara de Lempicka, Berlin, no. 74
1987
De Lempicka-Foxhall & Phillips, Passion by Design, Abbeville Press Publishers, New York, page 128
1986
U.A.M., Editions du Regard, Paris, page 468
1980
Bazin & Itsuki, Lempicka, Parko Editions, Tokyo, No. 61
1978
Marmori, Giancarlo, Tamara de Lempicka, Idea Editions, page 58
1972
Vaux, Marc, Lempicka Foundation, Paris, No. 102
1972
Reau, Jean Lempicka Galerie Luxembourg, Paris, No. 43
1935
Dayot, Magdeleine A, "Tamara de Lempicka", No. 156
1923
De Lempicka, Tamara, Photo Album Notes, Lempicka Archives, Houston, No. 102