Learn through the following post a little more about the successful and controversial life of the Polish artist Tamara Lempicka, considered one of the most influential painters in the history of universal art.
Tamara Lempicka
The end of the First World War represented for many cultures an interesting change full of emotions and a lot of revolution, especially from the social and political aspect. Countries like the United States or even the European continent witnessed the so-called "roaring twenties", where the participation of women in society acquired a new air.
It was a time not only of economic growth and momentum of consumer culture, but also women were able to experience a new level of liberation. In many countries around the world they were allowed the right to vote, while a large number of women entered the workforce, thereby gaining some financial freedom.
The financial liberation that many women were beginning to experience after the First World War also influenced other aspects of social life. It transformed fashion and the way women act. One of the most representative symbols of that time and that many women recognize today is the "flapper".
What is it about? A woman who wore mismatched clothes, had short wavy hair, and adopted a hedonistic lifestyle. It could be said that these types of women were the ones who served as a source of inspiration and influence in the work of the renowned artist of Polish origin Tamara de Lempicka, who we will be learning more about in the next post.
She was one of the most representative Polish artists of the time. Many of her came to know her under the nickname of "the baroness with a brush", and it is without a doubt that Lempicka became a brilliant figure of art. Her fame reached her due to her self-portraits and paintings of women in her elegant art deco style.
Throughout its history, it was able to carry out impressive artistic works, which was characterized, among other things, by exhibiting a lot of feminine power and sensuality. Through her paintings, Tamara Lempicka tried to celebrate the independence and women's liberation of the 1920s.
One of his most emblematic phrases was: "I live life on the margins of society, and the normal rules of society do not apply to those who live on the margins"
Who is Tamara de Lempicka?
Perhaps most of the public recognizes her as Tamara de Lempicka, however that was not her real name. When she was born, her parents named her Maria Gorska, however over time many began to call her Tamara, her stage name.
This Polish artist was born on May 16, 1898. Her birth occurred in a town in Poland called Warsaw. She was the daughter of a prominent lawyer of Jewish origin named Boris Gurwik-Gorski, while her mother was a Polish socialite named Malvina Decler.
Her interest in the artistic world began when she was just a child. It is said that she began to have contact with the arts at a very young age, even when she was only ten years old, she painted the first works of art of hers. One of her first works was a portrait she made of her younger sister.
For a short time she was confined to a boarding school in Lausanne, Switzerland, however when she left there she decided to go live with her grandmother in Italy, a country that represented a lot for her artistic career, since it was there where she managed to discover the work of the most outstanding painters of the Renaissance period.
The life of this Polish artist was always marked by scandal and controversy. When she was barely 16 years old, she fell deeply in love with the Polish lawyer Tadeusz de Lempicka, whom she also married. Shortly after her lavish wedding in St. Petersburg, Tamara's husband was arrested by officials of the new Bolshevik government.
The arrest of the lawyer Tadeusz de Lempicka did not last long thanks to the artist Tamara who convinced his captors to release him. The newly married couple had to flee the Russian Revolution and moved to the city of Paris, where the Polish artist began to train in art with Maurice Denis and André Lhote.
It didn't take long for Tamara Lempicka to become one of the most important art references in the city. Her great talent led her to conquer many stages along with other remembered artists such as Pablo Picasso, Jean Cocteau and André Gide.
The Polish artist rejected the impressionist painters of the time, because she believed that they painted with "dirty" colors. That was how Tamara Lempicka decided that her own style of painting would be characterized by what is fresh, lively, clean and elegant.
"My goal is never to copy, but to create a new style, with light and bright colors, and feel the elegance of the models," said the artist.
The truth is that Tamara Lempicka was not always a famous and admired artist. During her years of youth and part of her maturity, her paintings managed to experience important recognition by the public, in fact, she became one of the few women who managed to live from her work as an artist.
Unfortunately, during his last years of life, Lempicka's work gradually lost the interest of critics, especially due to the emergence of new artistic currents, including North American abstract expressionism, alien to any approach to the figurative.
Despite this decline, in subsequent decades Lempicka's work has been vindicated and recovered, and today she is one of the most sought-after artists of the XNUMXth century. Her life and her personality are partly unknown: the mythomania inherent in her character pushed her to create her own story, in which reality coexists with invention.
rise to fame
The Polish artist Tamara Lempicka held one of the most important first exhibitions of her career in the city of Milan in the 1925 decade. For that exhibition she had to paint some 28 paintings in just six months, something that represented for her a real challenge.
All the effort and dedication put in by Lempicka paid off. It didn't take long for the artist to start presenting her works in some of the most prestigious galleries in Europe. It could be said that her first great contact with her popularity happened when she exhibited her work at the Decorative Arts and Modern Industries Exhibition.
It was precisely during this exhibition that Harper's Bazaar fashion journalists discovered the brilliant work carried out by the artist Tamara Lempicka. Around the same time she was commissioned by the German fashion magazine, Die Dame, for which she painted her iconic self-portrait, Tamara in the Green Bugatti (1929).
Without a doubt, this self-portrait represents one of the most famous and important in the career of Tamara Lempicka, it has even been considered one of the most interesting examples of art deco portrait painting. In this work, Ella Lempicka painted herself behind the wheel of a green Bugatti race car, wearing a leather helmet, long white gloves, and wrapped in a silk scarf.
The truth is that Lempicka did not have a Bugatti, but a small yellow Ranault, however, the painting captures her beauty, her fierce independence and her wealth. Although it is true that this was one of the best-known self-portraits of her in the world, the artist also managed to shine thanks to other important works that continue to cause an impact among the new generations.
personal scandals
Tamara Lempicka's fame is not only due to her impeccable work done in the world of painting, but she was also involved in countless scandals and controversies throughout her life, especially during the time she was living in the city of Paris, specifically in the 1920s, when it became famous for its wild parties and its insatiable sexual appetite for both men and women.
When he worked, he painted portraits of the rich and famous of the day, including Queen Elizabeth of Greece, King Alfonso XIII of Spain, and the Italian poet Gabriele d'Annunzio. Her crazy way of living caused her many problems, even in her married life, so much so that her husband decides to divorce her because of those scandals that clothed her life.
The Polish Tamara Lempicka had an only daughter, but despite this, she almost never saw her or had a good relationship with her. Practically responsible for the care of the little girl was her grandmother. Beyond the little bond that existed between mother and daughter, it cannot be denied that in many of her paintings the girl was immortalized.
Among some of the paintings where you can see the daughter of Tamara Lempicka are:
- Pink Kizette (1926)
- Sleeping Kizette (1934)
- The Baroness Kizette (1954)
The decline of Lempicka in the midst of abstract expressionism
Some time after divorcing her first husband, the Polish artist Tamara Lempicka decides to give herself a new chance at love. She on this occasion she marries Baron Kuffner, who thus became the second husband of the painter. The marriage between the two took place in 1933.
A few years after their marriage, specifically in 1939, before the start of World War II, the couple decided to move to the United States. There the professional successes for the Polish would not cease. She continued to be a brilliant artist and made a living painting the portraits of many Hollywood stars.
However, after the Second World War, the artistic preferences of society began to change a bit, and the demand for Lempicka's art deco portraits began to fall drastically in favor of abstract expressionism, which would undoubtedly generate a lot of concern in the life of the Polish artist.
In the midst of deep despair, Tamara Lempicka takes on the challenge of venturing into abstract work, taking into account that it was the trend preferred by the public at that time. She was in charge of promoting a new style with a spatula, however, her new work did not obtain the expected success, so much so that she stopped exhibiting it in public shortly after.
Years later, the artist decides to live for a while with her daughter in Houston, although her last years of life were not spent in the United States but in Mexico, specifically in Cuernavaca. Mexico became the last home of the Polish artist, a country that she always carried in her heart.
Tamara Lempicka's death was one of the saddest and most unfortunate news for the artist's followers. She passed away in 1980; and by her own wish, her body was cremated and the ashes scattered on the slopes of the Popocatepetl volcano, thus putting an end to a brilliant and successful career.
Resurgence and legacy
Despite the scandalous life that the artist Tamara Lempicka had, the great work she carried out in the world of painting cannot be denied, so much so that today her work is still admired by thousands of people around the entire planet. . Her interest in her work began to revive in the 1970s, just after the retrospective exhibition "Tamara de Lempicka from 1925-1935" held at the Luxembourg Palace in Paris in 1972.
The Polish-born artist died in the 1980s, and today, more than 40 years after that terrible news, her work is still among one of the most coveted and admired in the world, especially among celebrities. Many stars have dedicated themselves to collecting her paintings, thus showing the great admiration they feel for Lempicka's work.
Some of the celebrities who collect works by Tamara Lempicka are Jack Nicholson, Barbara Streisand and Madonna. The Polish woman's paintings even appear in some of Madonna's music videos, such as Vogue, Open Your Heart and Express Yourself.
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