Tamara de Lempicka (Tamara Łempicka; Warsaw, 1898 according to the official version – Cuernavaca, Mexico, 1980) was a Polish painter who spent most of her career in France and the United States. She is one of the most recognisable figures of Art Deco, above all for her polished portraits of aristocrats and wealthy people and for her highly stylised nudes. Her work matters because it showed how the language of the avant-garde could serve a sophisticated portrait with strong visual impact.
She was born into a wealthy family and grew up in a largely female household, with her mother and grandparents, who gave her a refined education that included travel and art lessons. After marrying the lawyer Tadeusz Łempicki, the couple lived comfortably until the Russian Revolution of 1917. When her husband was arrested, she searched the prisons for him until he was freed, and they then fled to Paris. There, with the family's finances under strain, she decided to become a painter at her sister's suggestion.
In Paris she studied with Maurice Denis at the Académie Ranson and with André Lhote at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière. From Lhote she learned to value the decorative role of painting and to combine cubist abstraction with classical figuration. Her style, which was described as «soft cubism», joins firm volumes, smooth surfaces and intense colour. Her first pictures were portraits and scenes of her daughter Kizette and her neighbours, sold through the Galerie Colette-Weil. Around 1925, the International Exhibition of Decorative Arts, which gave the Art Deco style its name, boosted her reputation, and her paintings caught the attention of American fashion magazines. A prize at Bordeaux in 1927 confirmed her standing.
Her career peaked during the 1930s. She painted portraits of King Alfonso XIII and Queen Elizabeth of Greece, and museums began to acquire her work. After separating from Łempicki in 1928, she married Baron Raoul Kuffner in 1934. The war took her to the United States, where she painted celebrity portraits and, in the 1960s, some abstract works. Her reputation faded after the war but revived in the late 1960s with the renewed interest in Art Deco. She settled in Mexico in 1974 and died in Cuernavaca in 1980. Her legacy lies in making the elite portrait a modern genre and in her enduring status as an icon of Art Deco.
Works (1)
Where to see the work
- Musée National d'Art Moderne Paris · 1
Teachers and pupils
Studied with
- Maurice Denis 1870–1943
- André Lhote 1885–1962
Curiosities
A self-portrait with a car she did not own
In 1929 she painted a self-portrait for the cover of the German magazine Die Dame, showing herself at the wheel of a Bugatti, wearing a leather helmet and gloves. In fact she never owned that car. Her own was a small yellow Renault, which was stolen one night while she was celebrating with friends at La Rotonde in Montparnasse.
A portrait that never happened
The Italian poet and playwright Gabriele d'Annunzio received her twice at his villa on Lake Garda, where she hoped to paint his portrait. The negotiations failed, and both were left dissatisfied. She left angry, and he was not content with how the meetings had gone either.
The Baroness with a Brush
After her marriage to Baron Raoul Kuffner, the press began calling her «The Baroness with a Brush». The nickname stressed both her aristocratic status and her profession, and it stayed attached to her for much of her career. It was a way of highlighting that a woman from a comfortable background had become a painter of standing.