Paintbrushes and Pedicures: July 2013

Bloody hell, another intriguing artist I've got myself wrapped up in!

This month it is Tamara de Lempicka.

I had been grabbed by her Auto-Portrait (Tamara in the Green Bugatti) a few months back. I found the picture at a time that I was searching for 1920s inspiration for a themed ball we were going to. I became hooked on the style and was mesmerised by other images from that time.

It is just an instant dash of art-deco, it epitomises the era. Angular, geometric, modern and stylised yet she still has the sultry eyes, the bobbed, finger waved hair…

The BBC design website gives a great synopsis of the style, happenings, people etc of the time.

The reason that I decided on de Lempicka was that during the staff bonding trip to Dubai at the start of the month, in Neos bar, 63 stories up, was Tamara in the Green Bugatti. I didn’t see her until we left. So when I saw it in my new favourite bar in Dubai and recognised it, I was stopped in my tracks! It was the wrong way round admittedly but it made me squeal! I realised how much I like the picture and has got me looking at her life and other work.

She was born into wealth and bourgeoisie, a lawyer father and a famous socialite mother. Her actual name was Maria Gorska. At the opera at the age of 15, she cast eyes on the man she knew she would marry. And three years later she married Tadeusz Lempicki. Possibly a relationship based on dowry and wealth initially, with him being unwilling to find work after they escaped the Bolsheviks during the Russian Revolution. Nonetheless, they had a daughter, Kizette in 1916 (birth name Marie-Christine).

Tamara’s reputation as a bisexual in the roaring 20s was notorious; this attitude and behaviour at this time was unheard of. She became well known for her scandalous affairs with both men and women. Many of her paintings featured this sexual energy. She was quite a flamboyant character in many respects who seemed to care more for her work and her social life. She abandoned her daughter with her mother but never lost her really, she painted with her as a subject or a likeness, consistently.

Of her mother, Kizette wrote

“She was strict with others but she was also strict with herself. One was not allowed to be tired, one was not allowed to put off for tomorrow."

Tamara eventually married Baron Raoul Kuffner after she became his mistress. Through him she regained her place in high society and maintained her social life and her high-standing commissions.

I personally think she was a dynamic and strong woman, to the point of selfish maybe…? I am drawn to her art every time, it’s haunting yet dreamlike and holds my deeper attention for longer than most other pieces. She has a distinctive and elegant style and as I’ve said, it holds the style, glamour, the sultriness of the art deco period for me.