Tamara de Lempicka
Tamara Łempicka (pronounced [taˈmara wɛmˈpit͡ska] ⓘ; born Tamara Rozalia Gurwik-Górska[1] [taˈmara rɔˈzalja ˈɡurviɡ ˈɡurska]; 16 May 1898 – 18 March 1980), better known as Tamara de Lempicka, was a Polish painter who spent her working life in France and the United States. She is best known for her polished Art Deco portraits of aristocrats and the wealthy, and for her highly stylized paintings of nudes.
"Lempicka" redirects here. For the musical based on her life, see Lempicka (musical).
Tamara de Lempicka
18 March 1980 (aged 81)
The Dream (1927)
Self-portrait, Tamara in a Green Bugatti (1929)
The Musician (1929)
Adam and Eve (1932)
Maria Krystyna 'Kizette' Łempicka Foxhall (daughter) (1916–2001)
Adrienne Górska, architect (sister)
Born in Warsaw, Gurwik-Górska briefly moved to Saint Petersburg where she married Tadeusz Łempicki, a prominent Polish lawyer, then travelled to Paris. She studied painting with Maurice Denis and André Lhote. Her style was a blend of late, refined cubism and the neoclassical style, particularly inspired by the work of Jean-Dominique Ingres.[2] She was an active participant in the artistic and social life of Paris between the wars. In 1928 she became the mistress of Baron Raoul Kuffner, a wealthy art collector from the former Austro-Hungarian Empire. After her divorce from Tadeusz Łempicki in 1931 and the death of Kuffner's wife in 1933, Łempicki married Kuffner in 1934, and thereafter she became known in the press as "The Baroness with a Brush".
Following the outbreak of World War II in 1939, she and her husband moved to the United States and she painted celebrity portraits, as well as still lifes and, in the 1960s, some abstract paintings. Her work was out of fashion after World War II, but made a comeback in the late 1960s, with the rediscovery of Art Deco. She moved to Mexico in 1974, where she died in 1980. At her request, her ashes were scattered over the Popocatépetl volcano.
Early life[edit]
Warsaw and St. Petersburg (1898–1917)[edit]
She was born on 16 May 1898, in Warsaw, then part of Congress Poland of the Russian Empire.[3] Her father was Boris Gurwik-Górski, a Russian Jewish attorney for a French trading company,[3][4][5][6] and her mother was Malwina Dekler, a Polish-Jewish[7][8] socialite who had lived most of her life abroad and who met her husband at one of the European spas.[9]
Tamara was raised in Warsaw by her mother and grandparents, Bernard and Klementyna Dekler, who were members of the social and cultural elite – they were friends with Ignacy Jan Paderewski and Artur Rubinstein.[5] Their family grave is located in the Jewish cemetery on Okopowa Street in Warsaw.[10] When Tamara was ten, her mother commissioned a pastel portrait of her by a prominent local artist. She detested posing and was dissatisfied with the finished work. She took the pastels, had her younger sister pose, and made her first portrait.[11]
In 1911 her parents sent her to a boarding school in Lausanne, Switzerland, but she was bored and she feigned illness to be permitted to leave the school. Instead, her grandmother took her on a tour of Italy, where she developed her interest in art. After her parents divorced in 1912, she chose to spend the summer with her wealthy Aunt Stefa in Saint Petersburg.[12] There, in 1915, she met and fell in love with a prominent Polish lawyer, Tadeusz Łempicki (1888–1951). Her family offered him a large dowry, and they were married in 1916 in the chapel of the Knights of Malta in St. Petersburg.[13][11]
The Russian Revolution in November 1917 overturned their comfortable life. In December 1917, Tadeusz Łempicki was arrested in the middle of the night by the Cheka, the secret police. Tamara searched the prisons for him, and with the help of the Swedish consul, to whom she offered her favors, she secured his release.[11] They traveled to Copenhagen then to London and finally to Paris, where Tamara's family had also found refuge.[14][13]
Career[edit]
Paris (1918–1939)[edit]
In Paris, the Łempickas lived for a while from the sale of family jewels. Tadeusz proved unwilling or unable to find suitable work. Their daughter, Maria Krystyna "Kizette", was born around 1919,[15] adding to their financial needs. Lempicka decided to become a painter at her sister's suggestion, and studied both at the Saint Petersburg Academy of Arts and Académie de la Grande Chaumière with Maurice Denis and then with André Lhote, who was to have a greater influence on her style.[16][17] [18] Her first paintings were still lifes and portraits of her daughter Kizette and her neighbor. She sold her first paintings through the Galerie Colette-Weil, which allowed her to exhibit at the Salon des indépendents, the Salon d'automne, and the Salon des moins de trente ans, for promising young painters.[11] She exhibited at the Salon d'automne for the first time in 1922. During this period, she signed her paintings "Lempitzki"—the masculine form of her name.[19]
Her breakthrough came in 1925, with the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts, which later gave its name to the style Art Deco. She exhibited her paintings in two of the major venues, the Salon des Tuileries and the Salon des femmes peintres. Her paintings were spotted by American journalists from Harper's Bazaar and other fashion magazines, and her name became known.[11]
In the same year, she had her first major exposition in Milan, Italy, organized for her by Count Emmanuele Castelbarco. For this show, Lempicka painted 28 new works in six months.[20] During her Italian tour, she took a new lover, the Marquis Sommi Picenardi. She was also invited to meet the famous Italian poet and playwright Gabriele d'Annunzio. She visited him twice at his villa on Lake Garda, seeking to paint his portrait; he, in turn, was set on seduction. After her unsuccessful attempts to secure the commission, she went away angry, while d'Annunzio also remained unsatisfied.[21]
Rediscovery[edit]
A resurgence of interest in Art Deco began in the late 1960s. A retrospective of her work was held at the Luxembourg Gallery in Paris in summer 1972, and received positive reviews.[33][34] An extensive catalogue was published in Italy by editor Franco Maria Ricci in 1977.[35] After her death, her early Art Deco paintings were being shown and purchased once again. A stage play, Tamara, was inspired by her meeting with Gabriele D'Annunzio and was first staged in Toronto; it then ran in Los Angeles for eleven years (1984–1995) at the Hollywood American Legion Post 43, making it the longest running play in Los Angeles, and some 240 actors were employed over the years. The play was also subsequently produced at the Seventh Regiment Armory in New York City.[36] In 2005, the actress and artist Kara Wilson performed Deco Diva, a one-woman stage play based on Lempicka's life. Her life and her relationship with one of her models is fictionalized in Ellis Avery's novel The Last Nude,[37] which won the American Library Association Stonewall Book Awards Barbara Gittings Literature Award for 2013.[38]
Art market[edit]
In November 2019 the Lempicka painting La Tunique rose (1927)[62] was sold at Sotheby's for $13.4 million.[63] In February 2020, her painting Portrait of Marjorie Ferry (1932) set a record for a work by Lempicka by fetching £16.3 million ($21.2 million) at the Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale at Christie's, London.[64]
![The Musician, 1929[65]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e2/11_-_UHFforf_%2850062572341%29.jpg/101px-11_-_UHFforf_%2850062572341%29.jpg)
![La Dormeuse, 1930[66]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/76/52_-_ThxXolw_%2850062014768%29.jpg/160px-52_-_ThxXolw_%2850062014768%29.jpg)
