Madonna will showcase Lempicka’s art on her Celebration Concert Tour, Lempicka The Musical on Broadway in Mar 2024. An exhibition at San Francisco’s Legion of Honour Museum will reevaluate her style in art history by introducing 1920-30s Paris culture. And a documentary The True Story of Tamara De Lempicka & the Art of Survival will appear in 2024! What a year!!
Portrait Of Dr Boucard 1929
with test tube and microscope.
Maria Gorzka (1898-1980) was born in ?Moscow, daughter of a Russian Jewish solicitor for a French trading company, Boris Górski. After her parents divorced, Maria lived with grandma on the French Riviera. In a St Petersburg opera in 1914, Maria met Tadeusz Lempicki (1888–1951), a handsome lawyer of noble family. 2 years later they married in St Petersburg with her banker-uncle giving the dowry. A year later Taduesz was arrested by the Bolsheviks; Tamara got him freed and the couple and baby fled to Paris, with other wealthy White Russians.
Madame Boucard in lavish silk, jewels and mink
1931
In her early Paris life, she enrolled at Académie de la Grande Chaumière and absorbed the Old Masters, especially Bronzino. She drew on the Cubism of her Paris contemporaries and French Deco created a glamorous Paris epitomising Tamara's life and art. Her mentor was artist-critic André Lhote, creator of a gently coloured Cubism.
Deco made great progress in fine arts and industrial designs, based on simple format, clean lines and vivid colours. The improvement of technology, in industries like cars, ships and trains, emphasised stylised angular forms. Lempicka found soul mates in fashion illustrator Erte, glass artist Rene Lalique and designer Cassandre. Lempicka found her place as a portraitist of the era's beautiful people, mixing with André Gide, Colette and Jean Cocteau. Although married with a daughter, Tamara was busy having romantic involvements with both genders, patrons and models. And because tourism was making Montmartre too crowded and expensive, most artists gradually moved to Montparnasse with its wide boulevards and small courtyards. Pablo Picasso, Constantin Brancusi, Jacques Lipchitz, Tristan Tzara & Piet Mondrian were Tamara's neighbours in this centre of art studios.
Deco made great progress in fine arts and industrial designs, based on simple format, clean lines and vivid colours. The improvement of technology, in industries like cars, ships and trains, emphasised stylised angular forms. Lempicka found soul mates in fashion illustrator Erte, glass artist Rene Lalique and designer Cassandre. Lempicka found her place as a portraitist of the era's beautiful people, mixing with André Gide, Colette and Jean Cocteau. Although married with a daughter, Tamara was busy having romantic involvements with both genders, patrons and models. And because tourism was making Montmartre too crowded and expensive, most artists gradually moved to Montparnasse with its wide boulevards and small courtyards. Pablo Picasso, Constantin Brancusi, Jacques Lipchitz, Tristan Tzara & Piet Mondrian were Tamara's neighbours in this centre of art studios.
By 1923 she exhibited in small galleries. Her work was shown at the 1924 Paris Salon des Femmes Artistes Modernes, and in 1925 she had her first Milan solo. Her social life also blossomed, displaying Tamara’s skill in winning many men and women lovers, her models and patrons. See the women reclining, bathing, hugging or stroking.
Encouraged by Coco Chanel and the Flappers, Tamara went to chaperone-free parties, smoked and drove cars. The 1920s flat dresses provided an ideal canvas to display Deco taste. In 1927 Lempicka received 1st prize at the Exposition Internationale des Beaux-Arts for the portrait of her daughter Kizette on the Balcony, and divorced.
The Girl In Green With Gloves (1929 Musée National d'Art Moderne Paris) was a famous work that clearly epitomised Deco and flowing curves. See the self-portrait Tamara in the Green Bugatti (1929), in leather helmet and gloves. It was the cover of a German Women's Liberation magazine Die Dame: tight, post-cubist design; muted colour; speed; glamour; Hermès helmet; leather driving gloves! F Scott Fitzgerald popularised sporty outfits; and clothes and hats were designed for ships, trains or cars. Jean Patou, Madeleine Vionnet and Elsa Schiaparelli created excellent moving styles.
Examine Lempicka's males. The huge portrait of Duke Gabriel Constantinovich (1926) wore a gold-braided uniform and empty face. Count Fürstenberg Herdringen 1928 was a glass-eyed monster in a French navy beret. In the late 1920s her most important patron was flashy medico Dr Pierre Boucard (1929) who already owned some Lempicka nudes. Boucard gave her a 2-year contract to paint family portraits.
This new income bought a Left Bank 3-sorey studio house in Rue Mechain; grey interior, chrome fittings & American cocktail bar gave Lempicka her setting. On the easel was the portrait of Madame Boucard (1931), a complex work done by this connoisseur of textiles, jewels, hairstyles and mink boa. In Portrait of Madame M 1931, Tamara showed sleekness .
Tamara sold her expensive portraits to Paris’ rich aristocracy. She painted writers, entertainers, artists and Eastern Europe's exiled nobility. One of her wealthiest patrons Baron Raoul Kuffner (1886–1961) owned vast estates donated to his brewer family by Emperor Franz-Josef for supplying the Hapsburg court. Kuffner asked Tamara to paint a portrait of his mistress Andalusian dancer Nana de Herrera but while painting the Baron’s portrait, Lempicka got involved with him, replaced his mistress and married him in 1934
La Musicienne 1929
Lempicka understood political chaos, and encouraged her husband to secure his assets. So Kuffner sold his Hungarian estates. When WW2 started in 1939, the couple left Paris and moved to Hollywood. They lived in film director King Vidor’s old home, and Tamara soon became an artist of Hollywood's screen stars. Lempicka also busied herself with war relief work and after an extended struggle, rescued her daughter Kizette from Nazi-occupied Paris in 1941. In 1943 they continued to socialise in N.Y, although her art output reduced; conservatism started to challenge the feminist advances she’d championed. Nonetheless when WW2 ended, she reopened her famous Paris studio.
When the Baron died in 1961, Tamara sold up and sailed away. Then she moved to Houston Tx to be closer to her daughter and produced abstract paintings to remain in-step with current art. Only in 1966 did Musee des Arts Decoratifs open her memorial exhibition, then Alain Blondel opened Galerie du Luxembourg with a major Lempicka retrospective in 1972. But in 1978 she moved to Mexico, bought a special house and died in 1980.
Madame M sold for $6.13 million at Christie's NY in 2009. Lempicka's auction record, $9.1m, was set by Christie’s in 2018 for La Musicienne (1929) showing a mandolin player in vivid blue. A new record was set when La Tunique Rose (1927) earned $13.3m at Sotheby’s N.Y in 2019. Now Portrait de Marjorie Ferry (Paris, 1932) earned £16.4 in Christie’s London in 2020!! Many thanks to theartstory.
stylish Bar Lempicka in Amsterdam
See the Art Deco glass mosaic on the ceiling
and the Lempicka name on the facade
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27 comments:
How interesting - I don't think I've encountered this artist before. I love her work - we have very little wall space left in our house but I feel I'm going to have to buy a print. Her life story is quite extraordinary too
Her paintings are very cinematic. What a vivid life she lived.
These paintings look so good. Thanks for the introduction of her arts!
I cannot remember Tamara de Lempicka ever being mentioned in the Art History lectures I attended. Now I have had a good look at Bathing Nudes and think that perhaps the university lecturers thought it was 1920s pornography.
Mandy
I was wondering why English speaking art fans might have been very familiar with Paul Klee, Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, Wassily Kandinsky, Georges Braque, Pablo Picasso, Georgia O'Keeffe, Marc Chagall etc. Artists from very different countries and from both males and females. But not Tamara de Lempicka.
Presumably all artists' reputations rise and fall, so I suppose we would only know of her work if we studied/collected her during her periods of fame.
jabblog
de Lempicka certainly did live a very vivid life. She carefully chose her friends, clothes, parties and sexual partners to be dramatic and noticed. Nothing was accidental.
roentare
if you have the time, read https://www.theartstory.org/artist/de-lempicka-tamara/
We all still have more to learn :)
Hello Hels, I am familiar with the artwork and the name of Tamara de Lempicka, but I never put the two together. Thank you for providing this background story, and info about her reascendance. I just looked up more images of her work, and while there is variety it is all imbued with her trademark style.
--Jim
Student
our lecturers never had any trouble discussing paintings of a single naked woman, painted by a male painter. The only problem seemed to arise when a female painter depicted naked females together, groping and resting over each other.
Parnassus
she was a _very_ prolific artist. And even those who are familiar with Lempicka's works probably still haven't seen very many of them. Until 2023, for example, I had never seen any portraits of her daughter Kizette.
Boa tarde de terça-feira minha querida amiga. Espero um dia ver esses trabalhos, aqui no Rio de Janeiro.
Art that look familiar but not art I know anything about but let's be honest I know nothing about art or artists
Very interesting to read. Thanks.
I will try to catch that documentary. She travelled far, and experienced a lot.
The girl in green with gloves is amazing :)
This art is really amazing. I haven't heard of de Lempicka, but she had a lot of talent.
Luiz
you might like to read SLEEK WORDS: ART DECO AND BRAZILIAN MODERNISM by Patricia Soler who explored Art Deco in the Brazilian Modernist movement during the 1920s. Lempicka played a significant role.
Jo-Anne
if you are interested in cultural studies of the 1919-1939 era, you will find her work (and other artists' work) totally fascinating.
Ryan
she lived in Russia, Poland, France, US and Mexico and worked often in Italy. Except for her last years, she was the most well-travelled, most committed and most prolific artist I knew. I don't think her daughter even recognised her mother's face.
Girl in Green with Gloves, at Paris' Musée national d’art modern, is modestly dressed but gorgeously curved underneath. I loved it.
Erika,
you are not alone. I am guessing that many art history graduates don't know the name Tamara de Lempicka. Mind you, after seeing her work once or twice, art fans never forget her paintings again.
Enjoyed reading about the Lady. The only way to show life was to paint, now it's photos and everyone has access to take a photo instead of painting.
Margaret
I enjoyed writing about her :)
I think Lempicka could show her own feelings about her models in painting, more flexibly than she could have achieved with photos. Her men were more solid than they may have been in life; her women's nipples stood out, even though the models were fully dressed; Woman in a Green Bugatti looked more self-confident than any photo of a woman driver might have looked in the 1920s.
As a portratist of beautiful people, and as someone with a rich love life, who smoked and drove a car, Lempicka probably attracted great attention in various circles of society, in many places, but not for the right reaons. Anyway, I never heard of her.
DUTA
How did artists get noticed, especially early in their careers? Especially women whose works may have escaped public attention via the normal methods eg public galleries, auction houses, portrait commissions from wealthy families etc. de Lempicka had to create her own fame/infamy, as much by her lifestyle as by her art works. Of course she paid a (hefty) price.
See "A Marie Laurencin Exhibition Offers a View into the Lesbian Circles of 1920s Paris", by KAREN CHERNICK. Laurencin's reasons for painting women differed from those of her male peers. One could easily look at her canvases and see a saccharine world of woodland fairies wearing chiffon. Look closer, though, and you’ll find a female-dominated realm where men neither belong nor are welcome, the kind of realm preferred in the lesbian circles of 1920s Paris. Yet her work was quite different from that of Tamara de Lempicka, another artist active in Parisian lesbian circles at the time, whose erotic paintings of women were more obvious than Laurencin’s.
ARTnews
https://www.artnews.com/list/art-news/artists/marie-laurencin-artist-who-is-why-art-important-barnes-foundation-exhibition-1234692934/
What an interesting life! So vivid, so flashy, so fast! Absolutely fascinating - as her wonderful paintings.
I didn't know that she knew Colette (whom I adore). Thank you , Helen, for giving so many informations about a great artist!
ARTnews
I am very grateful for you suggesting a comparison between Marie Laurencin (1883–1956) and Tamara de Lempicka (1898-1980). It goes to show that sexual politics are only one aspect that influenced the art of these women in the 1920s and 30s.
Hopefully other readers will follow up your reference.
Britta
Not only was de Lempicka a vivid, flashy and fascinating artist. She was also a risk taker, at a time when most women artists tried to achieve success in their field traditionally.
Painted in Paris in the 1920s and 30s, Tamara de Lempicka’s glamorous portraits of the city’s socialites have become synonymous with art deco. Though these are considered the defining works of the artist’s career, Lempicka’s oeuvre demonstrates an impressive breadth, comprising sensual nudes, subdued floral still lifes and melancholic religious scenes. 150+ of these works are brought together at the de Young Museum in San Francisco, which has the first major retrospective of the Polish artist in the United States (12 Oct–9 Feb 2025).
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