by Nina Jankowicz and Kinia AdamczykHer works are sought after by the likes of Madonna, Jack Nicholson, Barbra Streisand, and Luther Vandross. She was famous for her money, her parties, where naked girls would serve as human caviar dishes, and her sexual conquests, ranging from high-society Barons to prostitutes. Her art, covering a wide range of subjects, is a quintessential representation of the Art Deco period. (Photo, left: de Lempicka's Studio in Place Wagram, c. 1924, by Constantin Stiffter.)
Tamara de Lempicka (nee Maria Górska) was born in 1898 in Warsaw to a wealthy family. Her mother, who was a former socialite, encouraged the extravagant lifestyle that Lempicka was to spend the rest of her life seeking. As a teenager, Lempicka attended boarding school in Switzerland and spent her vacations in St. Petersburg, Russia, where she married Tadeusz Lempicki. The couple barely escaped the Bolshevik revolution (in fact, Lempicka was rumored to have seduced several men in order to extricate her husband from a Bolshevik prison), and after selling the family jewels, Lempicka decided to subsist on her passion for art, which began when she was a little girl. She quickly gained popularity, as her numerous societal connections ensured her funding and press. Her subjects were mainly aristocrats, which furthered her popularity. After divorcing her first husband, Lempicka married Baron Raul Kuffner, which increased her status as a society painter. She was not, however, popular solely due to her societal status- her style of cubism was fresh and realistic, and she breached topics (for instance, lesbianism), new to her era. While her work suffered a decline in popularity during the 50s and 60s, it was once more on the rise in the 1970s. She died in her sleep in Mexico on March 18, 1980.
de Lempicka's iconic painting, "Self Portrait in the Green Bugatti," is not only a beyond accurate representation of the artist herself, but a picture of the period in which she found success. The sea green color that dominates the painting harkens to F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1930s-based classic, while the painting's shapes perfectly encompass de Lempicka's style of smooth cubism.
While de Lempicka was known for her wild personality, as she aged her work showed a penchant for not only the flashy exploits of the rich and famous, but a true appreciation for the human condition. Using dark, expressive colors and more realistic shapes, de Lempicka captures the simplicity of normal people, religious figures, and people enduring times of trouble with the same accuracy of her more glamorous subjects.
After de Lempicka's death in 1980, her life's work not only gained more popularity, especially among celebrity collectors, but was immortalized in several successful theatrical productions. From 1984-1995, Tamara, a play based on de Lempicka's life, ran in Toronto, Los Angeles, and New York City, directed by John Krizanc. The show, which involved the audience in a "whodunnit" fashion, received an excellent review from New York Times theater critic Mel Gussow, who called the show "an entertaining party game and murder mystery theme park...unlike any show currently in New York." Ten years later, British actress Kara Wilson wrote and starred in the one woman play Deco Diva, detailing de Lempicka's life.
Though Tamara de Lempicka died a very embittered, lonely woman, due to the decline of her art's popularity and death of her husband, her life and paintings offer an exclusive, dream-like snapshots of the years in which she lived. Her works represent an awakening of passion and awareness in a world that was previously stiff and structured; they will provide a reminder of this important shift in thinking for years to come. CR
