Tamara de Lempicka: The Complete Story
Tamara de Lempicka was the painter of Art Deco glamour, the sleek, chrome bright portraits of cool eyed women and powerful men that define the look of the 1920s and 30s.
Her self portrait at the wheel of a green Bugatti is the image of the modern, independent woman. She painted the jazz age the way it wanted to see itself.
She was also a self invented legend, blurring her own origins, living large, and staging a comeback decades after the world had written her off.
Born: around 1894, into wealth, likely Warsaw
Known for: Art Deco portraits, polished modern glamour
Died: Cuernavaca, Mexico, 1980
If this is your thing
If this is the kind of art history you want more of:
Twelve famous portraits and the real people, the faces behind the paintings
The Ambassadors, detail by detail, the object at the bottom that only works from one side
Luncheon of the Boating Party, detail by detail, who everybody at that table actually was
A style of steel and skin
Lempicka built a look all her own, sometimes called soft cubism. Bodies are smooth and sculptural, faceted like polished metal, set against skyscrapers and folds of satin. The figures are sensual yet cold, modern yet timeless.
She trained in Paris and borrowed the angular planes of Cubism, then made them glossy, elegant and commercial. See what is portrait painting.
Escape, twice
Her life was shaped by flight. She and her husband fled the Russian Revolution, arriving in Paris with little, where she turned to painting to survive and quickly became the toast of fashionable society.
As the Second World War approached she left again, this time for the United States, where she painted Hollywood and high society. She was open about relationships with both men and women, and lived as boldly as her sitters looked.
Forgotten, then reborn
After the war, taste turned to abstraction and Lempicka's polished glamour fell out of fashion. She was nearly forgotten by the time she retired to Mexico.
Then the 1970s rediscovered Art Deco, and her stock soared. Collectors like Madonna and Jack Nicholson chased her work, prices climbed into the tens of millions, and a Broadway musical was built around her life.
The comeback was complete, decades after the obituaries would have been written.
Things people ask about Lempicka
What is Tamara de Lempicka famous for?
Glamorous Art Deco portraits, above all her self portrait in a green Bugatti.
What style did she paint in?
A sleek, polished version of Cubism often called soft cubism.
Why did she become popular again?
The 1970s Art Deco revival, boosted by celebrity collectors.
Why Lempicka is everywhere again
Lempicka turned modern womanhood into an icon of cool, and the look she invented still sells perfume, fashion and film posters. Few painters have defined the style of an entire era so completely.
A final detail. She was so devoted to her own myth that she gave conflicting accounts of her birth, even her birthplace and year, so that to this day biographers cannot fully agree on where and when the queen of Art Deco was born.