TAMARA DE LEMPICKA

Born: May 16, 1898 (always lied of being born in 1902!)

Middle child, 1 brother, 1 sisterBirthname: Tamara GorskaBorn in Moscow (but always lied of being born in

Warsaw) Polish mother, Russian fatherRaised in the elite class

EARLY LIFE

Spent summers in Italy with Grandmother(Tamar was her favorite and spoiled her) and was introduced to the Great Masters of painting there.

At the age of 15 while at the Opera, Tamara falls in love with tall, dark, handsome Tadeusz Lempicki, a Petrograd attorney and is determined to make him her husband. Many say a baby was in the plan to keep him!

After they moved to Paris,they welcomed a daughter,Kizette Limpicki.

MARRIAGE / FAMILY

EducationTamara was taken under the

wing of two artists, Maurice Denis & Andre Lhote.

She claims to not have learned anything but became very influenced by what Lhote called “Soft Cubism.” Denis knew much about the early modernist movement and Tamara took interest.

CAREER / STYLE Her distinctive and bold style quickly

developed, and she quickly became part of the Art Deco movement.

She decided that many impressionists’ color palates were “dirty,” and artists such as Picasso “embodied the novelty of destruction.”

She decided she would keep her work clean & precise... Elegant. And that she did.

“I was the first woman who did clear painting  and that was the success of my paintingand the galleries began to put me in the best rooms, always in the center, because my paintings attracted people.

It was neat; it was finished."

1925 - Tamara had her first major exhibition in Milan, Italy. It is believed that she finished 28 new works in 6 months

Tamara became very popular for the elite class and painted many high profile figures

Portrait of the Duchess La Salle

Portrait of the Grand Duke, Gabriel

Tamara divorced her husband Tadeusz in 1928… due to her infidelities and his frustrations..

…And in 1929 Lempicka traveled to the United States to paint a commissioned portrait and to organize an exhibition of her work in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania at the Carnegie Institute.

While in America she weds the Baron Raoul Kuffner and moves to California, and then New York, where Kuffner dies.

Her daughter, which she kept secret from many, yet used her in several works, Kizette.

A Self- Portrait

Tamara tries to change her unique style, but gets no response from audiences.

The Lolas Gallery in New York exhibited her newest and latest paintings in 1962, but the critics were different, there were not many buyers, and

she swore to herself that she would never exhibit again.

The advent of Abstract Expressionism and her age halted her career in the 1950's and 1960's. Somewhat forgotten, her work ignored, she

continued to paint, storing her canvases in an attic and a warehouse.

She moves to Cuernavaca, Mexico in 1978 where she surrounded herself with young friends to forget the loss of her beauty and youth.

Gradually, as Art Deco and figurative painting came into favor again, she was rediscovered by the art world .

However, Tamar dies peacefully in her sleep on March 18th, 1980 with her daughter by her side.

Her ashes, upon her request were spread on the top of the volcano Popocatepetl .